The End of Empire
by helebette
Summary: OUaT/Swan Queen AU: Regina is the head of her own company, Emma is her assistant, and their many secrets are about to collapse inside a fragile city in the near future. From a prompt on tumblr-an AU G!P story.
1. Chapter 1

**A Dying Capital: 2013.**

At 5am, the gentle alarm app on Emma's phone sounds in the darkened bedroom. She can doze through parts of it—letting herself adjust to the growing light, the soothing sounds of an ocean far from her landlocked urban hole of an apartment. After a few more minutes, the birdsong and crashing waves end and a woman's voice, low and dangerous, says:

"Get. Up. Now!"

Grinning now, Emma rolls out of bed. Her apartment is small, sparsely furnished, but contains Emma's only treasured possessions—a set of high-end pots and pans, and a king size bed. She pads into the kitchen wearing only the red boy briefs she slept in. Before the shower, a coffee maker automatically turns on, but Emma always double-checks. On her way to the shower, she scarfs down a croissant.

The rhythm of Emma Swan's daily work life is fairly simple. Eat, fetch food, eat some more, spy on corporate rivals, fetch lunch, sort files, eat out—and basically ensure that all of her boss's needs are satiated.

Which _can_ be difficult at times.

It is 7am when Emma arrives at the office with the quadruple-shot cappuccino, protein shake, and berry compote slathered yogurt and granola thing that Regina loves from the organic grocery chain next to Emma's apartment. Not that Regina has ever seen Emma's apartment, it's just that Emma surprised her one day with the container of food and Regina has demanded it ever since.

The secretary isn't due for another hour. The marketing team, lab technicians, and business development analysts will not arrive for an hour and a half. Regina likes to work in an empty office for part of the morning, because she never could stand the fatigue and lethargy that filled the office when everyone had to show by 6am. Regina also trusts Emma more than she trusts the rest of her staff.

Besides all of that, the tightly wound boss needs some of Emma's 'extra duties' to be fulfilled before she can work well herself.

It might be anger that causes Regina's chest to flush, but either way, Emma will have her work cut out for her. Emma's dark slacks are a bit tight, but she knows that she'll have to make due. They only have an hour.

"On the phone with _MirorTech_," Regina whispers, then she gestures toward Emma and shifts her chair back a little. Glancing down at the bags of food in Emma's hands, Regina nods toward a spot on the desk.

"Of course we won't sell you the technology itself, just the finished product." Regina is shouting now. Emma decides to get down to business.

Twenty minutes later, Regina's free hand is playing absently within her own blouse, while Emma's head moves between her thighs.

"Ugh." Regina shakes her head and grimaces, suddenly nudging Emma's head away. She holds up a finger to indicate the need to pause. "Sidney, I'm calling you later. There is nothing more to discuss for now." She rolls her eyes and leans forward, effectively shoving Emma back onto her ass on the dark oak flooring.

"Ouch!" Emma growls.

"Sorry." Looking genuinely contrite, Regina tugs Emma upright and then rubs her hips soothingly. Regina is a lot of things, but she isn't really rough with Emma, nor does she make demands that Emma can't reject.

They've been doing this since Emma stumbled into Regina's office at midnight during her third week there, and caught Regina touching herself—her skirt hitched but hunched over her desk so no one would see. Regina isn't a sex addict, she just needs the release when she gets stressed—which is often. That night, Emma had been so turned on at the sight that she decided to lend a hand. Regina never returns the favor. She has tried, but Emma always keeps her at a distance.

There are things that Emma Swan tells no one, and there are reasons that she wanders from city to city, leaving the moment she gets close to anybody.

Emma buries herself in work to avoid dealing with her own secrets. The morning is spent in the lab ensuring that Regina's unique invention rooted in something called nanotechnology and formulated while Regina was a grad student at Harvard, is being kept completely confidential. Emma scours computer hard drives, checks that USB keys are locked away, and triple checks the communication and research processes which are designed to ensure that each employee has only one small piece of the project in their knowledge base. No one person knows how the whole thing fits together.

Emma gets their lunch from a Korean restaurant down the block. They eat in silence together, in Regina's office, while Emma re-reads a journal article Regina is trying to submit.

The mundane work of organizing files that Regina will not allow anyone else to look at is one thing. All night stake-outs in front of the company's rivals' homes is another. Regina is abrupt and demanding and because she is such a perfectionist herself, she _freaks_ when others make mistakes. It is oddly soothing, in a way, because Emma is able to bury herself in work, bury herself in pleasing Regina, and avoid any challenge to her privacy by somebody 'wanting more'.

Like the Monday after Regina's argument with Sidney Glass, the Executive Director of _MirorTech_, when she finds out that they have been conspiring to take her company over. Regina sends everybody home for the day and orders Emma to cover the front desk, act as her own admin assistant, and redirect all calls to the company cell phone so that Emma can run after Regina like she's on speed. They don't stop working until 9pm when hunger finally gets the best of both women.

"Everything ok?" Emma's voice is quiet in the office abuzz with electronics and harsh lighting. She had just spent an hour shuffling through the minutes of the company's last Board meeting and there is nothing in the document to indicate anything more than the ongoing concern that _MillsCorp_'s approach to nanotechnology already has so much global competition that their marketing window is dangerously narrow. Regina nods and looks her thoughtfully over.

"Tomorrow evening, I need you to watch Sidney for me…"

So after a day spent with _MillsCorp_'s internet security company to sort through employee emails, which is awful enough, Emma ends up stuck in the company car, the divider up, tinted windows down, a camera in hand, following Sidney from home to work to lunch to work again and then back home. The best she can do, for now, is to obtain a photograph of Sidney speaking to what looks like Kathryn Midas, the daughter of one of _MirorTech_'s board members.

At 8pm, Emma fetches dinner from a grocery store that makes really good minestrone soup. On her way into Regina's office, she is taken by the elbow and led to the executive washroom. There, Regina complains about her employees while Emma sticks a hand up her skirt.

"No underwear." Emma smiles in a smug sort of way. She doesn't know why this false confidence overtakes her when it remains so obvious that Regina is in control of every aspect of their interaction. She doesn't care. Not yet.

Her smugness earns a small reward. Regina scowls at her and attempts to jam a thigh between Emma's legs.

"Nope. I'm fine. Tell me more about your afternoon." Emma buries her nose in Regina's neck, because the lights are bright and sometimes Regina doesn't want to be seen making strange faces when she's trying to get off.

"I want to touch you. I like touching women." Regina pulls Emma's head back with both hands and tries to kiss her. Another thing Emma won't allow. Regina finally gives up, sighing wistfully as Emma's fingers gently and rhythmically stroke her.

Painfully turned on, from having just had Regina come all over her hand, Emma tries to listen while her boss complains some more. She adjusts herself as discretely as she can.

That afternoon, Emma is sent back out to spy on Sidney. The day after that is a repeat of the most boring assignment Emma has ever been given. A full week of 6-9 work days leaves Emma too exhausted to do more than sleep when she gets home.

It isn't until a week later, when Regina gives Emma the actual day off so that she can spend her evening following the man around, that Emma learns anything about him.

The club she follows Sidney into is a far cry from the coffee houses and pubs she had to watch him have his business lunches at.

This club is mainly for men, so Emma has never come here before. Still, it's open to women and to couples, and Emma knows that as many things as one can imagine do happen in the back of the club. It is dark and the walls are painted black, and there is a backroom where people get to have sex while others watch anonymously.

It is really far too easy.

It takes all of five minutes for Sidney to wander into the backroom and only a minute longer for Emma to follow. She sits at a booth which is divided from others by a flimsy curtain. Within a short time, Emma watches Sidney getting serviced by another man. Three pictures are quickly taken, then Emma leaps from her seat and rushes away.

The next night is a repeat of the first. This time, Emma obtains photos of Sidney with his hands down the shorts of a scruffy faced guy with a wooden prosthetic leg. Emma wonders if the leg gets the fetishists hot, or if the guy just likes how awesomely old school it is. While Emma takes the pictures using a small digital camera hidden in her red leather jacket, the wooden-legged dude looks at her and smiles. Then Sidney unzips his shorts and Emma leaves before she can think to torture herself by comparing what she has with what he has.

The truth is this: Emma Swan has never been intimate to the point of letting anybody see her body. What she has between her legs is her clit, not a dick, but with the length and girth of her she has always been too afraid to be seen. Emma doesn't want to be questioned and she's afraid of rejection almost as much as she's afraid that someone will accuse her of tricking them, freak out, and then maybe hurt her.

It's better in this life to just keep her head down and work hard. Then leave when the time is right.

On this night, the time starts to seem perfectly right. She is all mixed up between arousal and disgust. It occurs to Emma shortly after rushing out into the chilly night air, that while she had had one hand in her shirt just taking photos, to a casual onlooker, it looked as though she might be touching herself. The scruffy faced guy was obviously cool with it.

She's so hard in her jeans that she has to hold her jacket in front of her on her way down the sidewalk and toward her car. She rushes home and can only think of one thing. A shower. Because maybe then she won't feel ashamed or unclean when she thinks about what she really wants to do with her body.

When she strokes herself, one arm against the shower wall, her eyes tightly closed, she doesn't imagine the men at the club—they were just a reflection of her own need, her own shameful desires, and she feels a wave of sympathy toward the man she is about to expose. When she concentrates on her arousal, all she imagines is Regina. And with a rush of shame, Emma leans against the shower wall, letting water wash away her tears as she imagines herself engulfed by Regina, immersed in her perfume and tangled in her limbs.

"Shit. Dammit…." Emma says the curses aloud though they are so obvious she wishes she hadn't.

There aren't many clothes in Emma's closet, but she keeps a large suitcase under her bed just in case she wants to pack in a hurry. Of course she can't afford to leave, not really, not with the price of rent in this city and the retainer she had to pay to get her place. Besides all of that…Emma has a job to do. She washes herself in soapy, scalding water, dresses, and calls her boss.

It is 11pm when Emma hands the pictures over. They meet at the office, though Regina sounds sleepy on the phone.

"Sometimes it is terrible, being right." Regina peers over her reading glasses at the picture and speaks coldly. "Go home." She leans back and takes off her glasses, seemingly disinterested in using Emma's services any longer. "Tomorrow I have lunch with three board members from _MirorTech._ You'll accompany me. In the meantime, take tomorrow morning off."

There is a hard thud in Emma's chest as she turns on her heel and walks out. The realization that she can now walk away—that she has an entire morning to prepare her things and then bolt before Regina figures her out—makes her so sad she can't even say goodbye.

Still, for some reason Emma doesn't pack. She numbs herself out with late night talk shows and a container of chocolate ice cream and when she shows up at the lunch, the following day, her suitcase remains unpacked.

"You look refreshed." Are Regina's first words for her as she scans Emma up and down. Regina wears a red jacket and dark dress, and her lipstick is way brighter than usual. Emma arches an eyebrow. Her own slacks and shirt are dark and somber—which is fitting, because she spends her lunch alone and glowering while Regina wanders off to have drinks and appetizers with three men in casual business wear with stupid looking cell phone cases clipped to their belts. They were supposed to have been plotting a takeover of Regina's company, but now they seem to be firmly on Regina's side.

For an entire hour, Emma is forced to watch them touch her boss—casual touches, brushing against her arm, her cheek. It becomes too much when Regina finally rebukes a tall tanned silver-haired guy with piercing blue eyes who looks like he just arrived from Miami. She instantly hates his pink fucking shirt and his thousand dollar silver leather loafers (which…_fuck_ loafers) and she hates that she sees red when his hand touches Regina's thigh, just inside the spot that Emma knows—_knows_—will make those legs spread automatically. His eyes are curious as he takes in Emma's response and even as Regina places his hand back onto his own lap, he leans and asks her something and she laughs softly as they both look at Emma. She would storm out, or do something embarrassing like burst out through the door and then burst right back in (since she's still worried for Regina's safety) but she sees the man mouth the word 'bodyguard' to the other men before raising his class and tilting his head at her.

"What the fuck was that?" Are the first words out of Emma's mouth when she and Regina settle back into the limo.

"Hush. I need five minutes." Regina pats her hand and leans back against the seat. "They told me a great deal. Sidney is, apparently, sending his company down the tubes by misappropriating funds, drinking on the job, and having what appears to be a long, drawn out nervous breakdown."

"Poor guy." Emma grimaces.

"Indeed." Her cold eyes scan Emma's expression. "And when I buy him out, he'll go to a rehab facility, he'll sort himself out, and then he'll live the life he has always wanted with an enormous influx of funds into his bank account."

"Paying him off makes this all better?" Emma shifts and crosses her legs so that her feet are no longer pointing right at Regina.

Noting the distance Emma puts between them, Regina turns on her and spits out, "I have to fight to keep what I built. There are larger problems than even _you_ know about." She adjusts her jacket, tries to shift close, but then seems to give up and stares out the window instead.

There is a moment, when Emma looks at Regina, of some strange déjà vu. Emma stares and stares: at the nervous way Regina licks her lips, the way she tries to make herself small. Regina catches her looking and frowns in confusion. A second more and the power shifts again—Regina smirks and Emma turns red and looks away.


	2. Chapter 2

After a dizzying afternoon of innumerable administrative tasks, Emma rushes from the office. At each of the street corners across from the building there is a protest. She stops and stares, blinking in the eerie glow of fires lit in metal cans, florescent lights held aloft by people willing to take on the Capital's police force in an effort to save their union and ultimately their jobs. By morning, seventeen of the activists will be dead—shot at close range with rubber bullets and beaten with batons. The protest will be declared illegal after the Governor declares marshal law.

For any who wish simply to numb themselves, the city still beckons. It doesn't occur to Emma—yet—that the numbness she feels in the face of one of the city's last and largest protests is neither normal nor of benefit to her own wellbeing.

She showers as soon as she gets home, in scalding water, turned hotter with each minute she stands beneath its pounding rhythm. Then she dresses in a tank top and tight jeans and then makes her way to a club, to drink, to look at other women and to see if she can find something to distract herself with.

The whole plan nearly comes to fruition when a woman with dark eyes, full lips and red-streaks in her long dark hair sidles up to Emma. Her name is Ruby and she is some sort of hacker revolutionary…or some such nonsense. Emma doesn't give a shit, she just wants to get tanked and bury herself in strange and beautiful arms. It isn't hard to fool somebody into thinking that she just doesn't like to be touched—that she's some kind of extreme top—and it's shockingly easy to avoid intimacy with anybody she meets.

She has too much alcohol and the lightning is dim, but on her way out, Emma is sure that she sees Regina across the street. Even as Ruby hangs on her and gets in the way of her vision, Emma can swear that she sees Regina's frowning face.

Two weeks pass in a blur. Regina doesn't ask Emma for one favor that isn't work related. She doesn't even ask Emma to get lunch. Three lab techs are fired while the entire marketing team is replaced. There are background checks to do and an administrative assistant becomes sick from stress, so Emma takes over for him. A rival company wants access to one of Regina's patented food technologies which is kept in such a top secret place that even Emma knows nothing about it. Regina will not sell the information to anybody for any price, so Emma is in charge of tightening security around the building and around their offices.

The level of distant professionalism between them becomes disconcerting after awhile. Or, at least it does for Emma, but she has no idea what Regina is thinking or feeling.

One night, when the offices are nearly empty, Emma runs down to Regina's favorite sushi place on a whim. When she returns with her order, she enters Regina's office and places the food on her desk without a word. Then she stands there, breathing heavily, wanting things to suddenly return to the way they were, while Regina avoids her eyes. Just as Emma decides to give up, turns around to slowly leave, she hears Regina's voice.

"Wait."

Later, Emma will admire the bruises on her back and she'll remember the mark she left on Regina's shoulder with an oddly contented feeling.

For now, she slams Regina up against the wall, kicks the office door shut, and holds one hand over Regina's mouth to quiet her while the other hand pushes aside the thin wisp of silk covering Regina's sex and slips inside. They breathe hard after Regina comes the first time, and after the second, Emma collapses on the couch.

"I should do more weights." Emma jokes watching Regina straighten her hair in the mirror at the back of the office before sitting carefully beside her on the couch.

"Just ummmm…be quiet please…" Regina seems more shaken than usual. Her eyes look glassy and she stares at the hand Emma rests on her back. When Emma goes to remove the offending hand, Regina yanks it back, seemingly in need of comfort. Or…something more…

Twenty minutes later, Emma is sliding two fingers against the rough, swollen place she finds just inside Regina's cunt, while her other fingers are being sucked inside Regina's warm mouth. She stays gentle, knowing that Regina won't let go until they are in safer places.

A safer place, such as: the executive washroom where Regina's massive shower allows Emma to do what she needs to do to finish Regina off. Emma kneels and removes Regina's shoes, hikes her skirt, makes her lean back, stands beside her…

"Now?" Emma grins, still numb, still anxious, but secure at least in _this_. Whatever this thing is between them, it anchors Emma. She is about as close to analyzing why that might be as she is close to understanding any part of her blurry life.

"Now." Regina trails off in a moan that becomes a wail as she gushes over the hand slapping her clit and pummeling in and out of her.

Regina gets so wound up that Emma wonders sometimes if all the sex just isn't increasing her tension.

Emma earns all kinds of new perks. She asks for and receives training of all kinds. Trained in administrative work, training in the lab, trained, even, at a board meeting where she is introduced as Regina's Executive Assistant and Office Manager.

Still, Emma has begun to break her own rules. She still hasn't made an exit plan, still hasn't tried to find work elsewhere, and even worse, she is starting to want more from her life and from this place. Emma makes her first friend—the woman she brought home weeks previous—and in a drunken stupor, she admits everything to her.

"Awesome." Ruby says, again and again. They are eating Indian takeaway and Emma chomps on bread and drinks way too much beer while she blurts out stuff about her past. When it comes to admitting stuff about her sexuality and even her body, Ruby encourages her even more. "You're like a super human—the next stage of human evolution if you're into that stuff." Ruby smiles sadly, "And your boss sounds like she's in love with you." It isn't a secret that Ruby has wanted more than sex from Emma, but sex is all Emma can give her along with friendship.

"That's crazy. My boss is crazy. Crazy pretty." Emma slurs and swipes at sudden moisture leaking from her eyes. "Crazy, crazy." Emma adds after a moment's hesitation while Ruby stumbles into the kitchen to grab two bottles of water.

They decide to go back out together, as friends this time, to the same club they first met at. To outside observers, they might look like lovers, but Emma is just happy to have a friend she can talk to for the first time ever.

After an hour of drinking and chatting, Emma is shocked to see the woman they are in fact talking about. Regina storms into the bar and jams herself between them.

"Oh come you have got to be kidding me." Emma's hands are thrown in the air out of frustration, but Regina grabs one of them and uses it for leverage to drag her off her stool.

"Awesome." Ruby laughs. She grins at Regina. "You're even hotter than I imagined. Let me know if you two need any company…"

Emma yelps as Regina yanks her away.

"What did you tell that woman?" Regina hisses. "Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm in?"

"Why? For fucking your employee? I don't mind." Emma laughs, knowing that it's the alcohol making her this brave. She leans against Regina and kisses her cheek sweetly, then swoops down and kisses her neck instead. Realizing that she has come dangerously close to kissing Regina's mouth is almost sobering, until her head swims with the understanding that she wants to kiss Regina now.

"Are you sleeping with her?" Regina asks, leading Emma even as she walks backward through the ladies' room door. Before Emma can answer, Regina shoves her into a stall and kisses her, for the very first time. And Emma lets it happen, because she knows that she's wanted this much for a long time. Cupping the side of Regina's face with one hand, and brushing a thumb over the hands that grip leather armrests, Emma slows the kiss. She tilts her head to one side and takes Regina in deeper though, opening her mouth to the little moans that Regina keeps making.

Emma is so distracted by their first chance at kissing, that she doesn't notice Regina's hand sliding away from her neck and down across her hip, until Regina asks, "What is this, are you packing?" Grasping the back of Emma's neck, Regina moans as she rubs shamelessly against Emma's crotch. "In me, I want you in me."

But Emma is frozen. She can't bring herself to say "By the way, it isn't made of plastic" or "but I'd rather my first time were special…" because as much as she'd never imagined fucking a woman for the first time to occur in a bathroom stall, she can no longer imagine it any other way than the way it is happening right now, except that she has to tell Regina the truth. Which will mean rejection, which will mean never doing this again. And it'll mean leaving. Leaving Regina and leaving Ruby…

Regina's fingers are already on Emma's zipper. She keeps saying all kinds of naughty things about how wet Emma makes her and it's pretty distracting.

"I have to…wait, I have to tell you…" Emma swats Regina's hands away and holds her wrists gently. Too gently. Of course, because Emma won't hurt Regina, and Regina will do what she wants to do, now that she's already touched Emma and wants more…

"Tell me what?" It is easy to slip her hands from Emma's grasp. Regina reaches between them, unzips Emma's jeans, slides her fingers beneath the elastic of Emma's briefs…

…and then stops. "Ummm…tell me what, exactly?" Regina's eyes blink in slow-motion as she realizes what Emma has been hiding all this time. There is a moment—just a moment—when Emma wonders if Regina suspected all along. Or…something…Regina is hiding _something_, Emma is suddenly sure.

Time grinds to a halt and they freeze with it. Emma can hear her own heartbeat, punctuating her shame. Her cells seem to be rebelling and any minute, she will throw Regina off of her and leave this city and start over again somewhere else because she can't…she can't…

She can't read what the hell Regina is thinking. And before she can figure it all out, Regina has launched herself up and off of Emma's lap and is at the sinks, fumbling with the container that holds free condoms. She rushes back in and slams the door again behind her.

"Oh shit. Oh shit." This is happening _now_. And when Regina shimmies her skirt even higher and straddles Emma again, Emma knows that this _needs_ to happen now which is fucked up because this bar is gross and why are they doing this for the first time in such a fucking dive? But Emma fumbles with the wrapper and when she slides inside of Regina all at once, Regina hisses. There is a feeling of being so full, not like a physical thing but energetically, and Regina tells her about it all in vivid detail while she rocks against her but the strange thing is that Emma feels it as well, as though they are simultaneously inside of each other…

Time slows again, and Emma wonders vaguely if it's just the alcohol mucking things up. She feels light as she thrusts carefully inside the woman writhing on her lap. Regina feels like silk surrounding Emma's hardness, pulling her, squeezing her, rhythmically stroking her as they moved.

It takes only a few minutes for Regina to come, rubbing her own clit and biting down hard against Emma's neck. It takes longer for Emma, whose tears leak onto Regina's neck, seconds before she cries out and bucks upward and then starts to actually sob. She can't stop crying at the thought that Regina will _now_ reject her. It has to happen sometime and every moment makes it harder.

Except that Regina is just kissing her face and isn't saying anything mean, at all, but in fact seems to be talking about food.

"Come home with me, I'll make us something to eat." Regina mouths against Emma's temple then kisses her there again and again until Emma calms.

They are silent on the drive. Regina's car had waited for her outside the club, which Emma finds awfully strange. Except when she looks at Regina and sees the content and sort of smug look on her face, and realizes that the whole thing had been in the bag for her boss from the start. Emma rolls her eyes but still she reaches and lets her hand brush against Regina's, smiling when their fingers intertwine.

Still, she feels discombobulated—as though her legs and torso are not moving together in sync. The streetlights swim brightly behind Emma's eyelids when she leans against the window in a sudden wave of nausea.

What happens next will play over and over again in Emma's mind for years to come. First, she asks the driver to stop at a convenience store on their way. Then, while she is in the store, she finds a supply room in the back and slips out the door. While the driver and Regina wait for Emma to return, she walks quickly back the way she came, calls a cab from her cell phone…

And pays the cabbie nearly three hundred dollars to get her the hell out of town.

**TBC: 2 years later…**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey all, thanks so much for your reviews and comments and encouragement!**

**So I was just in a minor car accident tonite and felt the need to stay up late and edit the next chapter to this meandering story. Please excuse any errors, I really did edit it tonnes. Hopefully this chapter moves us closer to what is really important in life—Swan Queen. **

**2 years later…**

When Emma thinks back on her time in the Capital during the dying days of the old Empire, she remembers sounds like a radio station fading in and out as she drove further and further from the city. She remembers a day when she brought breakfast late and the air was filled with smells like ripe garbage when the city workers were on strike and blocked their replacement work force.

She also remembers the feeling of sliding uncontrollably toward an unknown catastrophe. Floating above every muted emotion is the sight of her former boss's flint-like gaze, demanding that Emma somehow figure her life out.

In two years the economy has all but collapsed. The very absurdly rich are still holding onto what they have, but there are vastly outnumbered by an increasingly demanding public. Somehow the end of the empire's extravagance has led Emma to reflect on her own life in a deeper way.

A cold breeze throws red and yellow leaves against the darkening exterior of Emma's new workplace. The streetlights click and clank and struggle at last to glow in creeping dusk.

The local radio station—part of the New Free Radio soundwaves—is playing a Cyndi Lauper song, one that has half the office bopping quietly along. It is a welcome break from the station's usual political commentary and listings of emergency fuel centers.

"When you were mine, you were kinda sorta my best friend…" Ruby lip syncs in Emma's general direction, sarcasm evoking genuine sadness. Ruby is Emma's best friend and also her co-director at the youth drop-in they had opened together the year before. They sometimes fall into bed together, which makes the work environment a bit tense, so Emma recently drew boundaries around the issue. There is a sort of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' element to the boundary drawing. On one hand, if Emma gives in, she will only be falling back into old patterns. Using sex to numb herself. On the other hand, she worries about isolating herself. In the end, Ruby has the best answer for them both.

It is Friday night and two hours from the end of the work day. The drop-in has after hours staff who will start their shifts early since they've planned some sort of 'Halloween is over it's nearly Xmas' (which still makes it denominational, Emma decides to remind them all on Monday) movie party. Some of the youth will stay all weekend since the local homeless shelter still doesn't have the funds to expand to an under-21 crowd.

Storybrooke, Maine is usually good at taking care of its own. Despite inept leadership and a mysterious spike in the population (sometime around the flooding of the entire West coast and the permanent installment of marshal law in most states) Emma finds herself assured on a daily basis, that things will work out in strange ways. An accident happens or a house falls into disrepair and people show up randomly and quickly to help fix things. Even the group home is funded in large part by the businesses, political bodies and fundraising efforts of the town itself.

When they aren't taking precious time to socialize with Ruby's hacker friends (a really weird bunch of 7 guys with nicknames from the old Snow White and the Seven Dwarves story) or hang out at their favorite restaurant-pub, Ruby and Emma spend most of their free time helping out around the school, organizing workshops and activities for youth there. It is an intense work schedule for them both. Their organization is always scrambling to find more funds. Emma is sure that the time has come for expansion, but just hasn't been able to get her hands on the right opportunity…

Until Emma opens the last of her mail for the day one frosty Friday morning.

"Ruby!" Emma shouts, jumping to her feet and running into the main office. She skids to a half in front of her friend's desk and waves a piece of paper in her face.

"A cheque?" Ruby's eyes bulge and she shoots to her feet. "Anonymous donor…ok…" Then Ruby reads the amount. Her pulse beats visibly in the vein that always shows on her forehead when she's stressed. "You're fucking kidding…"

Money isn't what it used to be. The dollar has been worth less than half the world's currency since the Stock Market crash of 2014. Yet building materials, groceries, housing and healthcare are prohibitively expensive.

"Fuck yeah!" Emma shouts, punching her friend in the shoulder.

"Language you two!" Their project coordinator Kathryn hisses from her side of the room. The office is isolated from the rest of the building—to keep anonymous files and discussions separate from the daily workings of the center mainly—but it isn't so separate that people in the main hallway can't hear Ruby's swearing.

"Who would do this?" Emma stares at a cheque for what amounts to a hefty start-up fund for the youth shelter she has wanted to expand into for a year. She had given a presentation on their funding requirements just three weeks previous, to local media and members of council, but all signs pointed to a zero-percent increase in city funding. Their Mayor is a chronic alcoholic and womanizer named Jimmy Charming whose wife Mary Snow is rumored to entirely focused on her affair with a local family doctor. Asking either of those two for some attention to town needs is pointless.

"Did you meet any more hot CEOs? Sorry, former CEOs?" Ruby asks politely, batting her eyelashes as Emma turns a deep shade of red.

"Ummm…no." Emma mutters, but at the mention of Regina Mills, she feels a strange crawling sensation at the top of her head. "Could it be…I…" She blinks, brushes hair from her neck, mutters to herself now, "…why would she _do_ this?"

"I'll look her up." Ruby shrugs. "Can't hurt." Her nails are some bright shade of blue today. "Do you know anything about her at all? Where she might be?"

"She retired." Emma fibs. "I mean that's all I know."

"Uh huh…" Ruby raises an eyebrow as Emma's cheeks turn pink.

Emma's office is the only room with proper storage and locks in this entire facility—it has something to do with making certain that their youth feel free to come and go, as though they are in a real home and not a pseudo-prison. Emma returns to her office and finds her safe. In goes the cheque. Still, she isn't satisfied. It would be easy for someone to scan the numbers on the bottom right corner of the flimsy paper—easy enough to hack into the system and steal the $7 million prize.

Which…

$7 million isn't what it used to be but its still a_ lot_.

She sits heavily in her chair and then gets up again, scraping her boots on the floor as she paces. Without saying a word, she runs back to her safe, punches in the numbers, tears it open, and takes off to the bank. She does not wear her jacket. She does wear her gun, a short barreled shotgun, heavy and hanging, looped against a leather belt across her back.

It is a full 48 hours later when Emma finally decides to make an announcement to the media. She and Ruby go out for a celebratory dinner at _The Fairy and Cricket_, a diner well known for providing free meals to those who need them and overpriced meals to those who can afford it.

They are eating from the tapas menu and Emma makes a mental note to double their tip since Archie, the cheerful owner of the establishment provides them with fresh lobster by way of congratulations on their expansion.

"So I looked Regina Mills up," Ruby mentions, sometime before she orders her third Ruby-Tuesday cocktail—so named because Archie has had a crush on her since the two women arrived in this town.

"Why?" Emma sputters after choking on her wine.

"Because I want you to be happy." Ruby delicately wraps her lips around a forkful of pasta in a garlic cream sauce. She chews thoughtfully and stares at Emma's terrified and wide eyes. "We both know it was her. Who the hell else would send you money. And she's the only person who's ever managed to accomplish that incredible task."

"Which task?" Emma whispers. She looks down at her hands which clutch against the edge of her white v-neck blouse.

"The task of making you happy," Ruby points her fork almost accusingly. "Which, by the way, I'm going to resent her for if you continue to show 'the girls' off as you are. Come on. Don't make me beg…" Her eyes rake across Emma's cleavage hungrily. "One last roll in the hay? We're celebrating, after all."

"Then what?" Emma asks leaning forward. "My therapist tells me that I have to stop running away from intimacy. That the sex is distracting me."

"Your therapist is an idiot. The sex is _awesome_…" She grins, wickedly, tilts her head and the light catches red highlights in her hair. She smiles again, but this time the smile is gentler, less predatory. "Then again, I see big things for you. Perhaps I'll let you go home alone tonite. Perhaps I'll let you make room for whatever—or _whoever_—is coming for you."

An hour later, Emma walks her friend home and hugs her tightly. The small house Ruby inherited from her grandmother is the reason they chose this town. Emma's own one bedroom house was part of the family estate. She is grateful for this friendship for many, many reasons, and she knows that Ruby won't hold it against her when she really does 'make room' as instructed.

Emma's own home is cozy and warm and filled with only small reminders from her various travels. There are a series of photographs in her bathroom, which she looks at from inside the claw foot tub when she languishes in warm salty water.

The photographs are of the streets around her old building and her old workplace in the former Capital. A small golden sign can be seen blurrily shimmering in the bottom left edge of one photo—_MillsCorp_ wavers like a ghost or a beacon, Emma isn't sure which.

The company had been sold sometime after she left—perhaps a year or so. Regina would have settled for a hefty fee, something in the billions in order to give her unique technology over to _Gold Enterprises. Gold Enterprises _isthe conglomerate that specializes continually in nothing and everything at once and which is still run by the man who 'mentored' Regina Mills.

Emma leans sleepily back against the tub and imagines that she can see the back of Regina's head in one photograph. She probably can, since she took the photo one night just as they were both rushing back into the office. Regina's hair was shoulder-length then, and strands had swept into the camera's range.

There are too many things to do for Emma to let herself wallow in memories and avoid sleep any longer. Still, she heeds the advice of her therapist and lets herself check her emotions as though she is taking inventory. Contentment, fine; sadness, odd. Why is she sad? She dips beneath the water and lets the water cover the sudden wetness on her cheeks.

Later, in bed, she tries the other exercise that her therapist recommended. He _was _her therapist, before she found out two weeks previous that he had forged his credentials. His name had been August—but Emma found out later that it was a fake, that _he_ was a fake. Still, he had seemed to care about her for some reason..

"Know thyself, Emma," He always had spoken in such a condescending tone, like he already knew her better than she knew herself. "Know what you're feeling so it doesn't control you. Know what you're thinking so you don't act merely on impulse. And know what you want, no matter how much shame masks your desires…"

His instructions had been to look at herself. Just to look. Emma had taken it one step further into touching, since looking freaked her out if she wasn't sure she could connect what she saw with what she felt and who she might be.

Her hands are warm and soothing as she strokes the heaviness of her breasts, the smoothness of her belly, the sharpness of her hips, and then the thick and now hardening appendage between her thighs. She strokes with one hand, careful not to lose track of her anchoring gaze, careful to keep her eyes open, and then slips her other hand lower, to touch the vulnerable, flower-like lips of her pussy. That's how she thinks of herself sometimes—as an exotic flower. Like an orchid or one of those ones with the long yellow stamens…

The tension swirls inside of her, making her clench snuggly around one fingertip, barely inside, while the other hand slows its movements and she lets herself breath in and refocus. There is a tugging sensation, just above her pubic bone but deep inside, and she moans as she arches and comes.

She laughs because it is Regina's face she sees then, from a small photograph of a frowning, annoyed looking woman atop the Forbes list of the richest (and incidentally youngest) retirees in the world. She is still laughing when Ruby calls and confirms their suspicions.

"She moved here." Ruby also tells her. "It's fate…"

"No, it's stalking." Emma replies with a snicker. She feels a sense of guilt, for having walked away the way she did, but it mixes with fear and nervousness and what she has to admit is _excitement_ knowing that she'll see Regina again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello readers! Ok your encouragement for this story has been astounding. Who knew my odd little future-AU story would work out. I'm working on future chapters…this one may seem anti-climatic but there is a way to travel before we get to the good stuff. Thanks for reading!**

A month later, construction begins on a fifteen bed unit—six for the girls who return most frequently to the centre, and more for any newcomers to town. Emma is talking to the twins, both of whom have already made a number of requests for their new accommodations.

Just as one of the twin girls informs Emma that a skylight is a must-have in any therapeutic facility, the shelter's benefactor arrives on site. For just a moment, Emma refuses to turn around—as though Regina might disappear or do something terrible if their eyes meet.

Regina stops politely at a distance. She wears a pair of dark grey cotton slacks and a turtle neck under a pea coat. Her hair is longer than it had been in the photograph Emma stared at the night before. She grasps her hands together in front of her and stares at Emma as if she's actually surprised to see her. Her eyes are warmer than Emma remembers them being.

Then Emma says "Hey…" like they've only been apart for a few hours and maybe nothing had changed. She misses only a beat, clicking her booted heel as she turns to shake Regina's hand. Their eyes meet but Regina averts hers quickly, smiling but brushing her fingers over her chin in a way that usually means she's nervous. It is hard to ignore the noise all around them but Emma can't stop staring.

"So…we need to…" Emma mutters to herself, feeling her cheeks burning red. She steps into Regina's space and touches her arm lightly. And then she leads Regina into the inner office.

"No, no, wait!" Regina realizes that she is about to be introduced to a room full of people and tries to pull away, but Emma doesn't stop. She just climbs atop a chair and announces to everybody that their mysterious donator has a name.

An hour later, the accolades die down just long enough for Regina to leave the office by Emma's side.

"Why did you do that?" Regina whispers loudly. She maintains distance from Emma which is matched in kind. Still, Emma can't help but feel that familiar tug of nervousness mixed with desire at the mere scent of Regina's perfume. There is something more open about Regina now. It is reassuring and disconcerting simultaneously.

"You deserved a public thank you." Emma swallows hard. "How did you find me by the way? Private investigators? Or…" They move through the front doors of the building and make their way around to the back parking area.

"Don't flatter yourself." Regina speeds up her own pace and soon they are beside her car. "I used the internet." Regina admits at last. "We do still have access to the internet in some parts of the country. Besides the hackers, of course."

"Well then, the wealthy still have their silly toys." She can't help but finish, not intending on sounding like a jerk—really just making an awkward as hell joke which is how Regina seems to take it. Emma earns one of Regina's patented smirks and 'you're an idiot' looks.

"We have little else. The empire has fallen you know." Regina smiles and it reaches her eyes. Another first in Emma's experiences with her former boss.

"The empire will not fall without taking many more of us out _with_ it." Emma smiles back and it does reach her eyes and so Regina relaxes a little more. "So Ruby tells me you live three miles out of town."

Regina blinks and stares silently. "How did she know?" She asks, always so oddly polite when she's lying about something.

"Nevermind that. Just tell me. Why here? Why now?" Emma searches for that emotional anchor thing. It doesn't work very well. She stares at Regina's chin. Regina has such a lovely chin…

"It seemed like a nice town." Regina pauses as Emma shakes herself out of some odd trance. "Storybrooke. Where one can write one's story all over again. Maybe." Her lipstick is pink and shimmery and Emma feels miles away from ever touching them again.

Still she nods and tries to squash the wave of sadness. A nice town. She'll have to wait, apparently, for Regina's real motivations to come out.

They take Regina's car, settling in side by side in comfortable silence. Emma directs Regina to Archie's restaurant and they have dinner with half of Storybrooke. Emma hovers near, but not too near, as Regina introduces herself to the Mayor and his wife, to Ruby, to Archie and to countless others. It is 3am by the time Regina drives Emma home. She does not stay. Regina does not ask her to anyway.

"Tell me the truth…" Emma asks again.

Regina toys with the door handle and stares straight ahead. "Your little town is harboring the country's finest fertility specialist. Dr. Whale—did you know that?"

The world tilts and Emma's vision blurs. "Ummmm…no, I didn't know that…" but Regina is already opening the car door, an enigmatic smile on her lips as she waves Emma away.

Over the next few weeks, Storybrooke becomes somehow _brighter _in Regina Mills' presence. She befriends everybody, in secret and not-so-secret meetings all over town. There are mysterious donations that everyone attributes to Regina—including some of the seemingly magical windows and exteriors with their self-cleaning technologies and other things Emma remembers from Regina's cache of inventions. Her former company's worth is transferred to Storybrooke where small businesses and cooperatives crop up. There are other, more mysterious projects, which Emma neither knows nor cares to know about. They have something to do with food production and all of the restaurant owners and grocery owners are involved.

To Emma's immense surprise, Regina even befriends Ruby. It happens after Ruby's 'Anarchist Dwarfs' (as renamed by the most mistrustful member of the group) find out that a multi-media corporate conglomerate has sent a spy to Storybrooke.

The women are deep in conversation when Emma walks into the local coffee shop. Regina is dressed causally, in a cashmere sweater and plaid scarf, and a hint of cleavage is peaking from the space between both articles of clothing. Emma has a sense memory of how Regina's breasts once felt pressed to her own while they were…

"Emma?" Regina looks slightly concerned at the devastated look on Emma's face.

"Oh. Hey." Is all Emma can say. She leaves without buying coffee.

Two nights later, Emma attends the annual Chickadee dance. The absurdly named fundraiser is the Mayor's attempt at fundraising for the local school. It doesn't work well on a monetary level, but loads of people get tanked and hook up.

Someone puts Earth, Wind and Fire on the stereo system and Emma stands awkwardly against a wall, wondering how it is that she got here. She realizes with a vague sense of worry, that she hasn't done anything but sleep and eat and work since Regina arrived.

So she stands, holding up a wall, nursing a too-warm beer, and watching the woman she sort of thinks of as having taken her virginity (sort of) dancing and flirting with her best friend. Later, Emma runs into Ruby in the washroom and Ruby smirks and Emma asks "Are you trying to make me jealous? You've wanted to sleep with her since you laid eyes on her." Ruby sighs dramatically. "I'm not doing this for my own health." She crosses her arms and looks Emma up and down. "You're miserable. You've been pouting and wallowing since she showed up. Making you jealous has been the only way I figured I could drag you out of your funk."

"Weird Rubes." There is a moment when Emma thinks she might cry. She's too confusing—her old world isn't combining with her new one. She wonders if she might just bolt and suddenly misses Ruby even before she has left.

"Go talk to her." Ruby tugs Emma close. "And don't run away from this…"

Regina seems to be waiting for them when they emerge. "This is the silliest party I have ever been to." She announces dramatically. She and Ruby exchange a quiet word before Regina turns to Emma.

"Do you want to get some coffee?" Emma shifts. Her skin feels suddenly tight. She feels unworthy of the casual 'yes' thrown her way.

"You're a squirrely one." Regina laughs the minute they're alone but it isn't unkind. "I've been waiting for you to buy me coffee for weeks." She winks as she starts her car.

"Wait." Emma takes a deep breath. "We…can we…" she wipes sweaty palms on her jeans.

"We'll go to my place. Is that all right?" Regina answers the unspoken but mutually agreed upon need to go somewhere private.

Regina's house is large and probably has too many rooms for one person's needs.

"I sold most of my technologies to Gold." Regina sounds almost apologetic. "The housing market is pretty awful. I mean I got this for a steal." Her hand brushes lightly over the long wooden slab countertop. She retrieves a bottle of champagne from the fridge and presents it to Emma to open.

Emma's mouth falls open. "I haven't seen champagne in years! Are you sure you want to drink this tonite?"

"It's meant to be consumed, not left collecting dust." Regina says with a shrug. She begins to light cinnamon scented candles and then stops and turns on her heel to regard Emma with a smile. "I like candles. I'm not doing this to…"

This earns a laugh. Then Emma finally relaxes. She is already at the sink, using a towel to slowly rotate the cork. Nothing spills, she proudly notes.

They sit on the living room couch together—this time closer than three feet, which is a nice start.

"Listen, Regina, I just wanted to say…I'm sorry…" Emma starts but Regina holds up a hand.

"I was your boss. I had power over you. There are things I have to tell you about that time…" Regina seems in a rush suddenly. Despite the candlelight and the champagne and the heat radiating between them, talking is necessary. In fact it feels really good…

So Emma waits for it, whatever it is. There had always been something hanging over them, some power beyond just Emma's salary and corporate benefits. The world goes hazy when Emma hears the first part…

…Regina is saying something about the group homes Emma used to live in…

"The group home where you lived as a girl. It was owned by Gold himself. He found you for me because he assumed that somebody with a past like yours would be easy to keep contained—I could tell you everything and in exchange, he would receive valuable information protected only by you and I. I needed a right-hand person. Somebody to oversee my operations…I didn't know that I needed…"

Her fists are clenched and it takes a minute for Emma to be able to relax them. She clears her throat and says, "And you also needed somebody to fuck your brains out on a regular basis in addition to controlling on just about every level?" Her vision is still hazy when she shouts, "How much about me did you know?"

"Wait…wait, I didn't know what you think…!" Regina holds up her hands as Emma downs her drink and throws the glass into the fireplace. It isn't enough. Emma looks for something else to throw as well. "Here." Regina gives her glass over.

"Fuck you." Emma fumes. She ignores, as best she can, the hurt in Regina's eyes.

"I promise, I didn't know about…I mean…" Regina's eyes flit down Emma's body. "I didn't ask Gold to send me someone I could sexually exploit. I liked you. I'm sorry for taking advantage of you. Gold didn't say a thing about…you know…"

Ignoring that part for a moment, Emma growls, "You didn't force me. I could have said no at any time, you wouldn't have fired me. I could have ruined your reputation."

Now Regina rolls her eyes but has the nerve to look embarrassed as well—to make Emma feel badly for exposing her. "Yes." Regina says simply. "Except that it wasn't as though…I mean I was attracted to you. Intensely so." She squirms—actually squirms—beneath Emma's gaze. "There's more. I can't see it's relevance just yet, but Gold picked you knowing that I also had a past—a past connected to you. I was in the same group home that you were. You don't remember me. I asked you for a flashlight one night, I had been having a nightmare. I was 17, you were 16, and I sort of had a crush on you."

Emma laughs. "I don't…wait, so…" she shakes her head, trying to process all of this. "What happened to you? How long were you at the group home?" Little about what Regina says sounds familiar. The flashlight thing though—maybe.

"Not long. Umm…I…like I said, I had a crush and ummmm…you were a girl, so I sort of felt oddly about that." Regina is seriously toying with her shirt now. Emma is pretty sure she's tearing at the cuff so she reaches and touches her hand, calming her momentarily. Regina takes a deep breath. "Full disclosure, right?"

"That'd be. Yes, thank you." Emma nods.

"I slept with the only male employee the group home had. Danny, the janitor." Regina laughs. "He was gorgeous but did nothing for me physically. I mean he was kind. That was enough in those days."

"I got knocked up." Regina finally laughs. "Danny freaked out, but he offered to help at the very least. Gold fired him and I never saw him again. I was sent to another group home, this one with other teenaged mothers-to-be. It was actually really nice for a time. I met another girl there, same age, though not pregnant. She was my first girlfriend, I suppose."

There is a moment then, when Emma wants to ask 'what happened to the baby', or 'what happened next' but instead sits quietly back on the couch. She takes a swig of champagne from the bottle and hands it to Regina to share.


	5. Chapter 5

When Regina first showed up in Storybrooke, Emma's life felt like it was splitting and dividing into all of the pieces she had compartmentalized it into over the years. Emma had strange dreams during those first few weeks. Some dreams were about the mundane elements of her life. These involved bizarrely normal dialogues about sandwiches and travel to work. Other dreams were overtly sexual but in a strange sort of way. Like when Emma lay naked in bed while Regina stood with her back to her and Emma asked over and over, "Why did you come here" and Regina didn't answer.

The problem is that Emma isn't sure why _she _came here to Storybrooke in the first place. That night she ran away, she ended up in a cheap hotel room with nothing but the cash in her pocket. The next morning saw a rally in front of that very hotel. Cleaning staff were unionizing. So Emma convinced everyone at the rally that she used to be a steward and then took a voluntary administrative position. That was how Ruby found her.

Emma had been eating lunch in a small park when Ruby approached, armed with information about Emma's meager efforts at revolutionary activity.

"Why now?" Emma had asked, sandwich halfway to her lips, eyes wide and innocent.

"Long story short. I looked you up, found your address, and then that very day, I got this postcard." Ruby started, holding out a card that read 'Storybrooke' on one side and 'broken' on the other.

"What does it mean?" Emma had hastily swiped crumbs and mustard from her mouth with the back of her hand. "And it's nice to see you."

"You as well." Ruby's smile had reassured Emma. "So what do you say?"

Emma blinked for so long that Ruby grew impatient.

"I mean what do you think about Storybrooke?" Ruby slumped next to Emma in the grass and took a bite out of her apple. "The thing that is broken is _only_ the Mega-Net surveillance system created in March of 2013 to monitor all living beings on Earth using heat sensors and DNA testers. You know, the satellite one that was also embedded in the earth? The thing we protested and lost lives over?" Ruby had grinned at Emma. "You've lost weight. Anyway, Storybrooke is mostly free. For now. You in?"

Ruby had said "trust me…"

…_Regina_ is now saying the same thing.

The feeling of fragmentation sorts itself out for Emma after she and Regina meet for lunch a few times.

The first time: they were at separate tables at Archie's. They ordered the same thing. Pastrami on rye, extra hot mustard. Emma sighed, slouched over, then got up slowly and walked sedately to Regina's table in the far corner.

"Hey. So…"

"Sit down, Emma."

The second time they had lunch, Emma actually had one packed for work, but she threw it out and made some excuse to go to Archie's. Regina was in her usual table in the corner but when Emma sat at her usual booth, Regina got up and joined her without a word.

Then one night Emma skipped lunch. She tried her best to avoid the need—the urge to see Regina. Instead, she worked on tonnes of paperwork. It had to be done. Had to be worked through before their fiscal quarter ended…

…and Regina showed up with dinner anyhow. Waltzed through the group home like she owned the place. Sat on the corner of Emma's desk. Crossed her legs and hiked her skirt only just enough to tell Emma that the whole fucking universe could be understood beneath the hem of that garment.

Emma was beat. More than that, she was won. She swallowed hard and let her eyes move over the curves of Regina's knees and thighs and hips and belly and ribs and…

Regina noted the reddening of Emma's cheeks and the desire in her eyes. Every move was deliberate, from the moment she sashayed through the door of Emma's office, smiled demurely and said,

"We're going to keep doing this. We might as well admit that we enjoy taking to one another."

Unlike their previous relationship, Emma and Regina begin their new relationship at a slow pace, without any sexual contact, and on equal ground.

"The Mayor checked himself into rehab," Regina tells Emma one afternoon. Emma rests her boots on her desk, earning a raised eyebrow from Regina. She smiles demurely and keeps her feet exactly where they are.

Then Emma actually _hears _what Regina is saying. "Oh?" Emma wonders if this might be Regina's new thing—becoming Mayor.

Regina gives Emma a wary look and adds, "I've talked to his wife about running…"

"Oh. Well then…" Emma fusses sort of awkwardly with her sandwich. It seems weird, Regina coming to town like this and now wanting be…

"No, I don't want to be Mayor." Regina reads her mind. "I've talked to his wife about her campaign. I'd like to advise. That is all." Regina seems proud of herself. For such a control freak, she is settling into retired life pretty easily. "She's quitting the doctor." Leaning forward and whispering this information seems to inspire the old spark in Regina. She winks and sits back again, daintily picking at her sort of enormous beef sandwich.

"Red meat is terrible for you." Emma remarks in a chipper tone. She likes Regina's little move. Second in command.

"I may look at some business ventures as well…"

"There is it." Emma laughs. "You can't change completely Regina." Her heart throbs at a memory of the old Regina. Short hair, grey power suit, barking orders at everyone and no one in particular at once. Yeah. Super hot. Also far in the past it seems now.

"Why are you looking at me like that? What have I done?" Regina asks politely but Emma doesn't say a word. Her dark hair is longer, straighter, and her suits are often replaced with casual sweaters and jeans, slacks and t-shirts and scarves. Today she wears tall boots with a short dress.

After Snow wins in a quick emergency election, the town celebrates a shift in perspective. No longer will they demand so little from their leadership. Emma and Regina are often busy with work for a good few months. They have lunch together every few days and a standing date for Saturday night with a small group of friends including Ruby and the 'Dwarves'.

Instead of offering to tear her pants off when Regina is stressed or upset, Emma listens to her.

One day, over coffee and sandwiches, they try to match up their stories about the group home owned by Gold. Emma begins to wonder if she _does_ remember the dark haired mousy girl with the science obsession.

"I used to read old biology text books in the back of the shed while the rest of you played baseball." Regina admits. "It was when I was caught and my books were taken that I started to sort of fall apart. My nightmares returned and all of that…" She stirs her coffee slowly and goes silent. When this happens Emma usually only pushes with a question. Something simple like…

"Have you talked to anybody about that time?"

Regina nods and they move on.

They don't talk about Regina's baby or child or whatever she thinks of it all. Emma confirms that she did have the child, did give it up for adoption, but doesn't push further.

"How are the tests going?" Emma asks quietly, shoveling a bite of veggie lasagna into her mouth.

"Fine. I'm perfectly fine." Regina seems willing to say more. Emma waits. "I'm perfectly fertile. Turns out the problems with getting pregnant had everything to do with the donor I was using…"

Emma flushes and nods. The thought of Regina having a kid makes her stomach feel funny and nervous. There is also a strange little jab of jealousy, though she knows that Regina was using a clinic and not actually sleeping with anybody. Emma stomps it down as quick as she can. They don't speak about it again for awhile.

Life goes on. Storybrooke begins to feel like an airport terminal that nobody wants to leave. Increasingly it becomes obvious that they _can't_ leave.

The world beyond their tree and lake encased borders is full of so much danger and so much odd, paradoxical hope and excitement, that to enter another's piece of that world feels like a breech somehow. Emma experiences this when she tries to drive to Philadelphia one day, only to find that a row of self-named Sheriffs from the New Empire are politely turning people away from the city. A dark haired man with kind eyes hands Emma a bag of food, a case of beer, and a pile of leaflets explaining what is happening there. When Emma returns to Storybrooke, she shares the beer with Ruby and they read about the rebuilding of four distinct districts within the old city.

The Mayor's office begins parameter checks and the townspeople agree on a similar approach to dealing with outsiders. Except for a few dissenting voices…

"We wouldn't be here if we weren't allowed in." Archie states the obvious in the simplest wording he can at one of their many meetings on the subject. At the very least, we need to consider expanding our town for those who don't know where they belong and don't know where they need to go next."

There are a series of hunting cabins that had been abandoned years ago. Regina is the first to suggest that these homes become a part of the town's self-sufficiency efforts.

"Each will be equipped with off-grid energy sourcing, small gardens, and an independent water supply. We'll all take turns living there, as part of the rebuilding efforts. Newcomers can choose where they live from there, but at the very least, we'll have expanded our options." This Regina explains while she shows off her own latest invention. Not much of an invention, really, more like a hippy dippy granola greenhouse where she grows hemp and soy beans. Emma thinks it adorable and teases her endlessly as each week sees Regina expand her operations.

"What are these?" Emma asks, pointing to a small purple flower that Regina seems intent on overpopulating her yard with.

"Nothing, don't worry about those." On this particular day, Regina distracts Emma from her questioning as best she can, but their brief conversation will come back to haunt them soon enough.


	6. Chapter 6

"Why are you two trying so hard not to sleep together?"

This is probably the sixth time Ruby has asked Emma the question in two days. She is no longer jealous, not since hooking up with the public librarian in town, a shy quiet woman named Annabelle.

Ruby and Emma are working a double shift to make up for staff illnesses. The two directors of the youth home and shelter sit together in Emma's office, watching as a group of youth tromp in from outside with a staff member. The hallway outside the main offices is lit up with activity and loud voices while everyone stomps new snow from their boots and makes their way toward the cafeteria for hot chocolate.

"I think I just need some more time." Emma isn't even sure if that's the answer. She only knows that her grounding is sure now and she doesn't want to lose that.

Christmas has already come and gone. The weather alternates between late Fall and what used to be Winter seasonal temperatures. Sometimes they can still see old leaves blowing around when the rains wipe out the snow. Now it actually snows again, blanketing patches of the street and making driving treacherous. Emma had just gotten off the phone with Regina when Ruby started in on them.

The town plans a week of festivities and feasting around February 14th and Regina was asking questions about those events and their relevance to the youth shelter. New Years is no longer marked on January 1st in the same way. Mid-Winter celebrations are now celebrated across the continent.

"Come on. You guys have this amazing energy together. I see the way she looks at you." Ruby sighs, swiveling in her chair so that the light catches the buckles on her favorite leather boots.

"I like where we're at." Emma tosses her empty mug to Ruby, hinting that she really should put on more water for tea. "I like where I'm at…though…you know…"

Lately they've been talking about the possibility of bumping Ruby's pay and hours to slowly take over Emma's half of the job. It's as though the building of the shelter itself is a sign to move on, try new things…

Two days later, Emma gets herself hurt so badly that she has to take time off of work and make some resolutions to better understand her life.

One of her kids kicks her in the face. It's an accident. Emma sees it coming the minute the boy's father bursts through what should have been locked front doors and demands his son's release.

The boy doesn't want to go with an abusive parent and when Emma tries to come between them—to take the man's hand from his son's arm—the boy has a panic attack and begins kicking everyone in sight.

Emma is knocked out for half a minute, at most. Ruby calls the ambulance first and Regina second.

"Goddammit, what happened?" Regina overreacts just a little when she bursts into the room where Emma is being held for observation at the hospital.

"Kid with some biiiig…anxious…issues. His dad came in to pick him up, take him home…big drinker that dude…ummm….kid hit me by accident…acid…hmmmmm…" Smiling despite the pain, Emma continues to ramble. She is more than a little high on whatever painkillers they gave her. Her forehead is stitched and her broken nose is bandaged. The kid's flailing legs actually didn't hurt her that badly, it was the chair she tripped over on her way down, and the stupidly placed metal cabinet she fell into.

She is taken home hours later. Ruby helps Regina to get Emma inside her bedroom and beneath her covers.

"Emma, we're just trying to help you. Don't worry…" Regina hushes her friend after Emma determines that they're trying to undress her. They aren't, but Regina does want to get the woman's tall leather boots off before she falls asleep in them.

Regina stays awake with Emma that night, monitoring her and waking her hourly.

By sunrise, Emma's drugs have worn off and she's unhappily staring at the ceiling while Regina fights sleep. Their eyes meet and Regina reaches for Emma's hand.

They both take a week from work. After that first night, Regina decides to stay in case Emma needs anything. Emma doesn't really need much care, but she doesn't protest when Regina sets up the couch to sleep on. They spend that first day watching stupid movies on Regina's laptop. Emma is treated to a shoulder rub which almost makes up for the pounding in her head.

During their second night together, Emma begins to have strange dreams again. In some, she falls into a hole in the ground rather than into a cabinet. In others, the chair she trips over is a dead body—the local Sheriff, dead and rotting in the hallway of her workplace. Then she dreams that the fall rearranges her features and no one can recognize her. Worst of all, Regina doesn't know her anymore, and tells her as much. She wakes from this last dream drenched in sweat and desperate for a glass of water. Her mouth is dry from the pain killers but she doesn't want to disturb Regina. After half an hour of fighting it, she eases from bed and tiptoes into the kitchen where the water filter is situated.

Regina is just as stealthy. She emerges from the darkness with her arms crossed and whispers, "Hey…do you need anything?" Her voice is soft so it startles Emma only a little.

"Oh. Sorry to wake you…" Emma turns quickly and sloshes her water. She smiles sheepishly around the rim of the glass and starts to gulp it down. Regina reaches and tilts the glass down.

"Slow down a little." Regina is wearing an almost identical outfit—loose cotton pajama pants and a tight tank top. She steps closer and pulls Emma's glass away, taking a sip herself. "Your mouth is dry?"

Emma nods and smiles. "I've got a bit of a headache." She doesn't mind the sympathy points she scores though she really is a bit achy. So she lets Regina pull her into a hug for a few seconds. Her own hands curve against Regina's lower back. She can feel the muscles shifting beneath warm skin and has to fight the urge to move lower. Regina's breath is warm on her neck and she feels lips brush gently against her skin before she is shooed back to bed. When Emma finally sleeps again, she dreams about Regina in graphic color—naked on the couch, talking to her about water quality testing.

The next day is spent looking up information on emerging problems in Boston. The old Boston was split into two cities after strikes and locked out workers reorganized the city's infrastructure.

"Now the counter-government party is sending its army into West Boston. They might find themselves a little more interested in places beyond the city." There are rays of sunshine across the wood floor and Emma's hands are rubbing Regina's feet while they read. The day is good even if Emma's nose hurts and she's uncertain about the town's ability to stay isolated from danger.

"Listen to this…" Regina seems less interested in the sunrays and more interested in the news. "The New Empire has started a whole new banking system. The same loaning practices that originally crushed the economy are now being used to steal resources from the workers' collectives. They're recruiting…"

"If the revolutionaries of the Old Empire think that they've got a legitimate opposition working for their rights, they might cross over…" Emma yawns and stretches, noticing with amusement the way Regina's eyes stray over to her.

They both think about that statement and shrug it off simultaneously.

"This is just another excuse for the arms' dealers to get involved in the war. The Old and New Empires will shoot the hell out of the cities in an effort to win a government that no longer exists." Regina bites her lip in the cutest way when she's thinking really hard.

More than a little distracted, Emma nods but her levels of concern are not what they should be. She decided years ago to have faith that the people would collectively organize themselves against the Old Empire. What is still up in the air is her own involvement.

The thought haunts Emma as she prepares for bed that night. What is she meant to do in these times? Until now, her work at the group home had made some sense of things. But some undercurrent seems to be challenging her to think anew about her life.

By the time Emma goes back to work however, Regina has begun to stay at her place again. There is a warmth and familiarity that Regina takes with her.

Something about the contrast between Regina's presence and her leaving, jolts Emma out of complacency. She wants more. She wants to do more and she wants to be more. With Regina. She wants to be more with Regina. The thought makes Emma grin stupidly for an entire week.

They come close to talking about it when Emma makes dinner for them both. A new career path had revealed itself to her that day, and she feels like celebrating. It snows during the day so by the time Emma slips and slides up her sidewalk, gets dressed up to remove the snow and make the path clear, _and _makes dinner, she has had no time to rehearse or even thinking through what she wants to say to the other woman.

When she opens the door there is a hug instantly.

"Sorry, I'm still cold from outside." Emma pulls back with a grin, leaving her hands on Regina's back. She likes the dark long dark coat Regina wears, it makes her look like the cold-as-nails businesswoman who once inspired Emma's naughtiest fantasies.

"How are you feeling?" Regina asks quietly. She touches the last fading bruises under Emma's eyes and smiles. "You look good."

Their heads lean toward one another, just a little closer. Emma has a thought that maybe she should angle things just in case Regina bumps her nose, but the issue is dealt with when Regina herself tilts her chin with her fingertips…

But before their lips meet, a series of shouts followed by pounding sounds at Emma's door.

"Really?" Emma says with an astounded and incredibly disappointed look. Regina is already on her feet but then the door bursts open and Ruby falls through…

She falls, because the 7 Dwarves crash in after her. The Dwarves recently altered all of their code names to make them sound even more complicated and mysterious.

"They're gathering genetic information to create super soldiers. Like the X Files!" Snee7zy (whose real name is Alfred) starts lecturing them all about the matter but he is soon interrupted by D00p$y (whose name is so complicated Emma calls him Joe).

"It's about reproductive technologies. They're going to figure out a way for women to reproduce using their own cloned cells." He says this slowly and thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "To what end however, I have no idea…"

"Super soliders." Snee7zy insists.

"All right, that's enough." The owner of the actual house mutters as she stomps into the kitchen. She hears someone asking Regina if they were interrupting anything and thus earns a punch on the arm from Ruby. "Owwwww…."

"It's for not inviting me for a threeway." Ruby jokes. "Nawww, it's a congratulatory punch. We'll leave later and when we do, you two can carry on. In the meantime," she turns to Emma's coffee maker and flicks it on having already filled the basket. Coffee is a hot commodity in some parts, but in Storybrooke, the diners and restaurants have been growing their own beans for years now in greenhouses attached to numerous houses.

"What's so pressing?" Regina asks politely as she enters the kitchen. "And what's for dinner?" She smoothes a hand soothingly over Emma's shoulders on her way past.

"There's a spy in Storybrooke…" Ruby replies with such pride that Emma and Regina have to sit down and listen…

"We're on the verge of a civil war." Ruby tells them. "And we're divided along new lines now. We all know that. But what isn't known, is how deviously interconnected the New and Old Empires are. The higher ups don't care of their frontlines get decimated." She hands them both coffee and they sit at the kitchen table.

"We think that the spy in Storybrooke wants some of Regina's GMO'ed grains." Grumpy (the only person whose code name doesn't sound like a DJ) calls out from the living room.

"That's absurd. And they aren't all genetically altered. Some are just old and I promised never to sell them. Older and heartier…" Regina mutters into her coffee cup but then smiles when she sees Emma beam at how cute and nerdy she can be. "And they're more like legumes…"

"Right, right." It suddenly occurs to Ruby that the mood she's interrupted isn't going away anytime soon. Emma is still looking at Regina like she is the most magical and special thing. Ruby rolls her eyes and mumbles something like 'cock blocker' to herself. "Sorry guys." She says aloud, but Regina and Emma are already smiling stupidly at her as well. She is apparently forgiven.

Despite whatever mood Emma and Regina were in before their friends showed, the night turns out really nicely. Regina receives a call from the Mayor—Mary Margaret Snow—who drops by with some kind of homemade lemon cake. As always, the Mayor stares at Emma with the oddest look on her face. It isn't unpleasant though. Emma smiles back at the woman. She has kind eyes…

More and more, Emma finds herself feeling as though she really can't leave Storybrooke. Her roots are finally digging into the ground in this place. She looks around at her strange circle of friends and decides that she doesn't mind.

It is way past midnight by the time Emma and Regina are left alone again.

"I should run for Sheriff." Emma breaks the news as though it's a new thought. "The position is coming up for a vote just after New Years." She is clearing up dishes and mugs when she breaks this news.

"No." Regina shakes her head right away. "The last two Sheriffs were shot by vigilantes. Besides, hasn't getting kicked in the head done something for your sense of self-protection?" She huffs this last point, crosses her arms and glares at Emma. She is suddenly very much the Regina of old.

"Well they also arrested those vigilantes and shipped them out of town." Emma points out. She reaches for Regina's hand and tugs on it. "Come here…"

"No." There is that look again, like Regina is going to pull rank and have somebody fired in retaliation for Emma's defiance.

The hand holding isn't helping, so Emma pulls out the heavy artillery and pulls Regina into a hug instead. They have time, this much she knows.

A week later, Emma brings Regina lunch in her new office at City Hall.

"Your office is half the size of the Mayor's." Emma quips the second she slumps in a chair in front of Regina's desk and puts her boots up. "Speaking of whom, have you noticed how much she stares at me?"

Regina gives her an odd look and leans back in her chair. She seems to be on the verge of saying something but then thinks better of it. If they are good at anything in this relationship, it is _not _talking about things that need to be discussed.

There is a fireplace in the office, much like the one in the Mayor's own space, but the room is not large. Still, it has space for a small couch and sitting area, a large desk, and the view is fantastic.

"If the power goes out, I'll survive. Anyhow, I like it, it's cozy." Regina remarks, spinning around her chair with a sandwich in hand. The wallpaper is black trees on a cream background. The floor is marble.

"So will you discuss my campaign with me now?" Emma asks. "I've given you time and space to think about it…"

Then the phone rings, just as Regina starts glaring and Emma starts to get defensive.

The second Regina hears who it is, she looks like somebody fed her some bad oysters.

"That was Gold…" Regina says numbly. Her hands clasps in front of her. "He's coming to town…"

"Ok?" Emma has the sudden thought that Regina might faint where she sits. "And? Is it that bad to see him after all this time maybe he isn't so…I mean he sounds awful, but he doesn't have any power over you, does he?" Her eyes widen. "_Does he_?"

Then Regina says,

"And he's bringing my son with him."

She is able to say the words before she greys out and has to put her head between her knees. Emma rubs Regina's back for a long time. Then she lights a fire, closes the office door, and they talk.


	7. Chapter 7

"Gold adopted my son when I couldn't care for him." Regina starts by saying. "It was supposed to be an open adoption. I mean I didn't admit this to myself before, not really, but I only signed away my rights because I felt pressured to. Gold kept writing me these letters, telling me that the boy was better off without my interferences…he meant well…"

"Meant well?" Emma can't help but protest but Regina rushes ahead.

"He didn't want Henry to be confused—to wonder why his mother could visit from time to time, but never take care of him. I didn't feel capable, I was young I suppose. In Gold's own way, he thought he was looking out for me as well. I mean he mentored me throughout my schooling, paid for my education, paid for my housing…he just didn't think I could be a mom…"

"Wait, so Gold is an entrepreneur, right?" Emma suddenly thinks to wonder about the many hats of this Mr. Gold dude. "And he was a scholar…why was he even running a group home for youth? I mean that doesn't fit with his corporate agenda…

"Sure it does." Regina looks like she really doesn't want to get into this part.

Something thuds hard in Emma's chest. Her jaw clenches as Regina begins to speak.

"Emma we weren't in just any group home. You must have suspected as much, surely? We were in a human genome experiment. Basically. Remember the bizarrely frequent health care we received?" Regina's nails are painted in a clear coat of polish. She rubs her eyes and Emma notes how short she keeps her nails—short but well-manicured. Emma blinks and shakes her head and starts to listen again. "…People with various…'abnormalities' were housed all together. We were poor, orphaned, runaways…nobody knew what he was doing. Nobody cared." She adds quickly, "I never knew what your specifics were. I'm guessing that the whole thing was a bust based now on what I know about you…"

"What's your abnormality?" Emma interrupts numbly.

"That doesn't matter." Regina looks really worried now, which is fine because worrying about Emma's state of wellbeing seems to distract her from her own. "What matters is that you know this—is nothing, abnormal about you."

"But you just said…" They are still sitting together but Emma feels miles away from Regina.

"Gold failed with many of his projects. My guess is that you were among those failures because your body, your genes, are absolutely normal, whatever normal even means. I mean who knows. I'm guessing…" Regina grimaces. "I'm sorry to invade your privacy, I mean I know I have no right to even speculate. But…you can't have children, can you?"

"No, but so what?" Emma jumps to her feet and backs up against the window. Her arms are crossed in a defensive but nervous manner. "I have every piece of my anatomy that you have, or Ruby has or whatever. I just have, I don't know, a bit of a hormone differential and an enlarged…part…or whatever. Jesus, what does it matter?" She couldn't have kids—neither of her ovaries produced 'viable' eggs. She also couldn't create anything spectacular with her enlarged clit or dick or whatever the hell people wanted to call it. "Either way, not being able to have kids could just be a problem like any woman might face…you know?"

"Of course." Regina nods. "That's the point. I'm sure of this, whatever else I didn't know about you, this makes sense—that Gold couldn't get anything from you that he didn't already know. What did he do when you finally turned 18?"

"Set me loose with a load of cash. I was closer to 19. I had a lot of money all of a sudden." Emma thrusts her hands into her pockets and scowls. "I mean I mismanaged it, but still, I lived all right for a year or two." She gnashes her teeth—an old habit—then rubs her jawline to stop. "So…tell me. I've seen you naked, I know you don't have what I have."

Regina gives a wry laugh at Emma's humor then admits, "The big idiot thinks I'm psychic."

"Well. Are you?" Emma never did have a problem with such things, but Regina's outright dismissal seems odd.

"I am a woman of science. I do not psychically predict the future or psychically connect with my son in dreams. Nor do I find people I'm secretly in love with by sitting in my living room one day and meditating." Now Regina looks embarrassed beyond measure. Her cheeks are rosy red and she looks like she might cry.

Her words hit Emma like a tidal wave. "Oh." She just sort of gasps and sinks to the ground. The only part that sticks out is 'secretly in love' because of course who else would Regina be talking about…

"Yes I'm talking about _you_ goddammit." Regina grumbles, glancing from the corner of her eye.

"Did you just read my mind?" Emma's whispered question is hilariously stupid, but it sends Regina into a fury. Which is unfortunately, because both women miss the fact that Emma is totally accepting of everything else that Regina is saying about herself.

"_No_, for gods…Emma, it was obvious you were looking at me with so much confusion…" Throwing her hands in the air, obviously giving up now, Regina gets up and readies herself to storm out as dramatically as possible. While she pulls on her coat, she continues to rant, "He only kept me around because I could keep up with him and his stupid so-called inventions. I've stolen more than I've invented and what I've invented isn't pretty. He pulled me into that damned home for silly, frivolous reasons, but he kept me around because I made him money. Lots and lots of money."

"Regina, wait…" But Emma is left with the sight of a darkly clad woman whose figure is normally so regal looking, bowing out of the room as though the world weighs on her shoulders.

So they take a few days apart. They both need to think things over. And now with Henry and Mr. Gold coming to town, Regina needs to prepare herself.

It isn't an easy time for Emma. Having been so close to someone, on such a daily basis, she is now left with an unfamiliar void. She admits to Ruby that it's easier to be lonely when she hasn't known anything different. Ruby takes her home that night and makes her a grilled cheese sandwich—the ultimate comfort food—and then sits with her when she cries.

The time to campaign for Sheriff arrives but Emma can only muster a few small slogans, one of which is 'vote for Swan, she'll get shit done' which Ruby nixes before taking over for her friend.

They are, in fact, discussing Emma's campaign, when Gold walks into Archie's with a reasonably cheerful 14 year old kid in tow.

"Oh shit." Emma mutters into her coffee mug. "Oh shit…"

Gold glances her way and smiles. He and the boy sit at a center table and open menus. Emma overhears the boy saying, "So that was my mother…" before she throws some bills on the table and tells Ruby she'll see her later.

She can't find Regina at work or at her home. It takes all of half an hour to find the Mayor's favorite advisor, huddled and crying in the rain in front of Emma's house.

"Regina…" Emma has to shout against the water hammering down. She slips on ice-covered snow and shivers as her arms wrap around Regina's waist.

"I'm suh…sorry…" Regina grimaces, seemingly annoyed with herself for sobbing like this. Her hands grasp the lapels of Emma's leather jacket.

"It's ok. It's all ok." Emma's hands splay across Regina's lower back, her lips brush against her neck then chin, then the corners of her mouth. The rest happens too fast but it's like a dam bursting…

Rain pours and pours, draining down Emma's back, making Regina's lips slippery when they kiss, finally, mouths opening and tongues seeking each other's warmth…then Regina's fingers are nimble on Emma's jeans and her hands pull them down slightly, underwear as well, Emma feels herself being stroked and then engulfed slowly, inch by inch, until she is buried within Regina and their bodies are as close as they can be…

…but Emma wants out of the rain. She refuses to fuck Regina on the hood of her car, refuses to let her stay wet and shivering. She is able to lift Regina, to wind her legs around her back, but the ground is horribly slippery so Regina pulls away and walks. Then they stumble and slip up to the front door where they crash inside and begin to tear at one another's clothes up against the hallway closet which is at least slightly more civilized in Emma's mind. But Regina is still shivering, worse when her wet clothes are peeled off, so Emma steps back panting.

"Come with me…" For really the first time in her life, Emma doesn't give a damn that she's fully naked in front of someone. She takes Regina's hand and leads her to the shower where she turns the water on as hot as they can both tolerate it.

As is often the case when Regina is too upset to talk, she starts trying to initiate sex again. Even as Emma tries to soothe her in other way, Regina's hands keep wandering. They end up in Emma's bed, sheets pulled up around their damp bodies while Regina pulls Emma atop her and inside.

"Please…"

"I think we should…" Emma doesn't say 'wait', she wants to say 'talk', but instead she groans and lets the sparks behind her eyes and the agonizing warmth between her thighs take over her senses.

"Wait, what?" Regina stops rocking her hips for a moment, a dazed look in her eye. "Do we need to worry about protection?"

Emma shakes her head shyly. "I'm clean. I mean I also can't ummm…you know. Get you knocked up or anything."

"Oh. Right, of course. You had mentioned…well, too bad." Regina looks disappointed for a moment and it's almost sort of comical.

"Yeah, like I said before…also no…previous partners, not like this, I mean." Emma's arms burn and shake a little as she braces herself on them. "Except for you, of course." Her cheeks burn as well now.

"Oh my…" For the first time Regina not only calms her emotions, but begins to connect with the woman she's been begging to fuck her. The realization that Emma's first time was in a dirty bar seems to weight much heavier on Regina than it ever did on Emma herself.

"No, it's ok." Emma shifts again and slides in and out of Regina, feeling herself warm and harden more. There is a buzzing feeling at the base of her spine when she repeats the move and it intensifies as Regina's hands start to rub her there.

Then Regina regains control again. She seems to need that, now that so much of her life is out of control. She looks up at Emma with a wicked little smile and her eyes glaze over as she starts to talk to her. She tells Emma how full she feels, how perfectly Emma fits inside of her, how wet she's becoming. By the time she talks Emma through an orgasm so fierce it causes her to collapse atop her, those words are being punctuated with sexy little moans and erratic movements. Emma only has to slip a hand between them to stroke Regina's clit fast and hard before she feels and hears Regina come for her.

As suddenly as they had begun, Emma feels sleepy and overwhelmed. She rolls over next to Regina and closes her eyes. Of course the other woman is totally wired and in need of more discussion.

"So…" Regina props her head up with one hand and rolls nearly onto her stomach. Her leg now drapes over Emma's. "What about the other kinda virginity?"

"What?" Emma's eyes fly open and she stares. But Regina's eyes aren't unkind, just really, really hungry looking, like she wants to eat Emma inch by inch. Or something. Not like that, not like Emma is thinking…

"I mean, have you ever had someone inside of you?" Regina traces the outline of Emma's mouth with her fingertips. Her fingers are warm and soft and Emma's imagination sparks to life with their movements.

"Myself. A little. Not much. I don't know if I like that very much." But then something clenches inside of her and she begins to wonder if she might like that _very _much. "Oh _fuck,_ Regina…"

Then they're at it again and this time Regina is atop her and doesn't stop moving. Her lips are everywhere, on Emma's collarbones where they lick a straight line up toward her neck. She focuses next on Emma's breasts, kneading and sucking and kissing until some information is understood which seems to satisfy Regina's questioning…

…then her lips brush over Emma's stomach, down her hips…

"No way." Emma squeaks, watching as Regina's tongue traces patterns over her hip bone.

"Please…pretty please with a cherry on top…" Regina seems on the verge of making a really unfunny joke right then but obviously thinks better of it. She sighs with regret when Emma scowls at her and tugs her back up. "Ok. Sorry."

"No, it's just…" Emma squirms beneath her until she's comfortable again. Which…is hard. Double entendre totally intended. "Look, you were upset. This is awesome, but I want more." That wasn't what she intended on saying, she knows it's not about her, but dammit if they're just going to fall into old traps…

"How much more do you want, Ms. Swan?" Just like that, Regina's old façade is in place. She kisses Emma's chin and grins devilishly at her.

"First off, I want to know if you're ok?" Emma's question causes a change. Regina slides off her again, still staying close, and avoids her eyes. Her fingers toy with the edge of the sheet still covering them.

"No. I'm not ok." Regina admits with a sigh.

Somehow it makes things a little better, to admit that much.

Equally miraculous:

Emma talks Regina back into her clothes with the promise that she'll accompany her on a meeting with Henry. She asks, "What did you say to him the first time?"

As Regina is buttoning a navy pin-striped vest over her shirt she admits, "I told him that he looked like a very respectable and intelligent young man." As Emma's mouth falls open she adds, "He seemed to like that."

"Oh." Emma zips up her jeans and shakes her head. "Well, that's nice then." She smiles at the floor when Regina lights up and smiles just a little.


	8. Chapter 8

Emma has the luxury of changing into a fresh outfit, but Regina's slacks are still damp from the rain outside, so they wait a while before going out. Emma heats up a pot of chili she had made the day before and Regina contemplates baking bread to go with it. This all happens while Emma runs around in just her jeans and a sports bra and Regina walks around with her shirt and vest and a pair of underwear.

Still, however domestic and cozy the scene might be, Emma feels some odd undercurrent between them. Their stories are complicated. What once was a routine and structured relationship is now completely new and filled with unknowns.

"Where do you keep your flour?" Regina asks as she opens cupboards.

"While I know you're procrastinating, I have to admit that going out in this weather is seeming less and less enticing." Emma points out to where freezing rain is starting to coat the tree branches that hang nearest her kitchen window. Regina grins at her, hops on the counter, and tugs on Emma's belt loop.

"I'm too nervous to leave." Regina decides. "Besides, we just shagged for the first time in two years, I am reluctant to part from your embrace."

Emma leans back and looks into Regina's eyes for a long time. "Mhmmm…" She hums in a tone that suggests skepticism. "You must be nervous. I mean I would be. How are you feeling?"

"_Feelings_ conversation…" Regina mutters with a smirk as her fingers trace the lines of Emma's collarbones and shoulders. "We are having a _feelings _conversation when you could be tearing off my underwear and burying your face between my thighs…"

"Regina you should like a borg…" Emma laughs but tilts Regina's chin upward.

Just then, Regina's cell phone buzzes. Emma grabs it from the coat still thrown over a chair in the front entranceway and hands it over quickly.

"Hello." Regina says, like she knows who it is. There is a pregnant pause. "Yes, well. I'm not exactly home." She mouths the name 'Gold'. As Regina speaks, Emma gestures for her to tell him to come over. "But you can come by our future Sheriff's home. I was just discussing her campaign…with her…" Regina smiles demurely while Emma flips her the bird followed by a firm but silent kiss on the forehead. "She has a few things for dinner, whatever you bring will be a wonderful addition." While her tone sounds confident, her hands tremble in hanging up the phone.

"Ok?" Emma takes a deep breath in asking the question and encourages Regina to do the same when she hugs her.

Emma has to lend Regina some pants then, while finding herself a sweater or something warmer than what she's currently not wearing. They are neatly presented and standing by the door when the knock comes.

A blast of cold enters with Henry. Behind him is the supposed to be one of the most intimidating people on the planet, but to Emma, he looks like a sickly and overly skinny old man. He looks at her with a flicker of recognition and smiles and she sees the handsome person he once was. He looks ill though. When he shakes Regina's hand, his eyes look pleadingly at her, though Regina is too distracted by Henry to notice.

They end up having a sort of awkward dinner. From the moment Henry steps into Emma's home, he chatters just about non-stop, asking Regina questions ranging from her favorite music to every vacation she has ever taken.

"You've been to Egypt? That's so awesome. Maybe some time we can go somewhere together. I hear Alaska is really warm now, which is really messed up for sure, but we could go and take part in some of the polar bear rescue operations." This is the kid's idea of a vacation. Emma smiles at him. He has Regina's eyes and hair color, but his skin is paler and his nose has a small bump that is probably from the dad.

Regina, for her part, seems intent to just stare and stare at him. She eats very little and her hand keeps hovering toward Henry without purpose.

Dinner really is awkward just for Emma and Gold then. Gold because he knows exactly what he's interrupted, and Emma because she just isn't sure what the hell kind of alternative family moment they've stumbled into.

"So, Ms. Swan. I hear you're running for Sheriff of this lovely free colony." Gold's voice is rough but his eyes are extremely alert. Emma feels almost as though he can see through her.

"It's not a colony. Is it?" Emma gapes but Gold laughs. He seems almost nice. It's weird. She hasn't exactly heard nice things about the guy in the media or from other people. And the kid is generally really well adjusted it seems also.

After a dessert of apple pie which nobody eats but Henry, Regina leaves to discuss a few things with Mr. Gold.

Henry and Emma throw the dishes in the sink and sit back at the kitchen table. They talk about music mostly, and Emma finds herself liking the kid more and more as their conversation progresses. "So you're a bit of a DJ then?" She asks, scrolling through his phone.

"Yes. No. I mean I'm not very good at it. I mean I like to mix things here or there but nothing major and no one gets to listen to it, I mean it's really, really rough, I need a lot of practice, do you think my mom is happy to see me?"

Emma is taken aback only momentarily by the question thrown into the midst of a lot of rambling. She answers quickly. "Yes, I think she is really, really happy. I think she was just nervous, you know?"

"I…yes." He nods.

Emma fights the urge to ruffle his hair. He hands her his cell phone and they listen to his music list with one earpiece each. "The Sounds? I like this…"

"Yeah." Henry laughs. "I mixed them with the Bangles once. It's a pretty weird mash-up."

"The Bangles? How do you even know who they are?" Emma cracks up at the thought, then laughs even harder when he switches to a mash-up with Manic Monday.

"My dad had this tape of my mom's. I mean among her stuff, stuff she left behind or whatever…" Henry shrugs.

They both stop laughing. Henry because he's suddenly uncertain about what he had just shared, and Emma because she realizes another piece of Regina's puzzle…

"She lived with you guys?"

"When I was really young." Henry nods. "I was 8. She had a box of things in storage or something and Dad had to get it. He also made her go to therapy apparently. I mean I don't remember. She was only around for three months before she left for school again. I didn't see her again. Until yesterday. Thing is…I remember something she used to say. It was weird, like she and I were more like siblings or something. Because Dad was sort of like a father to her or something. He knew her parents…jeez, do you know any of this?" His eyes suddenly narrow suspiciously. "I mean how well do you know my mother?"

"Well enough." Emma sighs and holds up a hand. "But you're right. You should stop now. I'll wait for her to tell it all in her own good time…"

"Tell what in my own good time?" Regina's voice floats from the doorway. When Emma and Henry turn around with guilty looks on their faces, her eyes widen.

"Nothing!" They say in unison.

Regina's eyes are locked with Emma's when she says, "Henry, I think your father wants to go back to the hotel to rest now."

"Oh. Ok." He looks impossibly disappointed, which softens Regina's demeanor.

"Would you like to have lunch tomorrow?" She asks quietly. He nods and they both smile and Emma sees the resemblance there as well.

Once they're alone again, Regina turns toward Emma with a wry smile.

"Oh, so. Ummm…You knew Henry when he was younger?" Blonde hair gets wound around one nervous finger as Emma blurts out the question.

"I had a run-in with the law. Oddly enough, it was Gold's biological son's fault." Regina laughs as she draws the family tree with her finger in the air. "Let's just say I'm a terrible mule."

"Mule?" Emma frowns and then suddenly gets it, feeling like an idiot for failing to remember the old terminology for what is now known as a 'cell'. Since travel had become so difficult with the closing of so many borders, the drug trade had become even more dangerous for those desperate and willing to risk their lives by cramming their bodies into locked compartments on military vehicles or cargo trains.

"I was caught at the Mexican border with a pound of hash and a small amount of cocaine. A delivery for someone I didn't even know I was meeting, packed in a bag I didn't know I was carrying." Regina's arms are still crossed. She looks angrier as the story goes on. "Do you want me to leave now? Is this really such a horrible mark on my record?"

"Huh? No. Of course not." Emma scowls. "I just know so little about you it sometimes seems." She steps quickly to the right when Regina tries to rush past her and holds up her hands. "Wait. All right? Look. One time, I stole watches, jewelry and money in the Dominican Republic from a rich couple and then sold them in Amsterdam. Also, I smoked pot."

"Oh." Regina seems impressed. "How did you end up in the Dominican Republic?"

"Ex-girlfriend." Emma mutters. "She wanted a vacation. I couldn't afford it."

"Hmmmm… Ex-girlfriend…" Regina seems completely capable of losing sight of the entire discussion whenever Emma's personal life is mentioned. She gives Emma a look that can only be described as completely possessive.

It's hot. But distracting. Like other moments they've shared since Henry arrived in town, it makes Emma feel as though Regina is using her to avoid her own turmoil.

Emma swallows hard. "Yeah, uh, we didn't last long. And obviously ummmm, we didn't…"

Interrupting her, Regina chuckles, laces her fingers in Emma's hair and draws her in for a kiss. She pulls away for a moment, bites Emma's lower lip, and murmurs, "If you have any more questions for me, let me answer them, ok?"

Standing up from her chair, Emma nods and wraps her arms around Regina's shoulders, pulling her up as well. "So why is Gold here?"

Instead of answering right away, Regina turns and leads them to the couch. A bottle of wine and two glasses sit next to it. Gold doesn't drink and so Regina and Emma barely had any wine themselves.

"He's sick. He came here because the doctors don't give him a great deal of time to live. It's some kind of immune deficiency." Regina pauses and glances at Emma. "For which I'm sure I have something that could prolong his life. And he knows it. So in exchange for visiting with Henry, he gets a recipe for an old tea and an enormous bag of plants that I'll harvest for him tomorrow." She raises her glass to her lips. After she swallows, she stares somewhere past Emma and adds, "I call it a fair trade. I'm still angry at him though."

"Yeah, uh, sounds complicated between you two." There is another of those many moments in Emma's life, when she wishes she knew a bit more about her own past. "Um, so that's all?"

"No way." Another sip of wine turns more into a chug and Regina shakes her head. "He's up to something else. He's deep in the New Empire's arms race. I already have information from old contacts about the numbers—how much Gold has made throughout this war is truly obscene. I gave him only what he needed to be well again, but I held back on the things he really wanted."

"I suppose there's no need to worry my pretty little head about what those things might be, huh?"

The sarcasm earns a raised eyebrow, but the question gives Regina pause. She swirls the wine in her glass and casually remarks,

"You know, I've been in love with you for a long time."

_Well _then.

It is a touching proclamation, but one delivered then and there, it backfires.

Emma sputters and chokes on her wine. "This isn't how you say that to someone!"

"Oh?" Now Regina looks confused again.

"No! You're supposed to…I don't know, not bury it in all kinds of complicated stories about your past and…" Emma coughs and chugs the rest of her wine. "You're supposed to buy me flowers when you say that shit to me."

"Well I apologize. I'm not very good at the lovey dovey thing…come here. Don't be crass." Regina grabs Emma's hand when she gets up to wander off and pulls her down again. "Say something."

But it's hard to talk when Regina's fingers start kneading Emma's neck and the base of her skull.

"This is going fast." Emma tries. "Not that I'm objecting. I mean we've been taking it way too slow by some people's standards. It's like zero to a sixty, just really fast."

"Mhmmm…" Her hands splay over Emma's skin in heated lines. Regina's lips are sudden distracting against Emma's ear.

"I think you keep trying to have sex with me to stop from telling me something really important and I think you need to spit it out." Emma squeals as a tongue darts out to trace the muscle on the side of her neck.

"Do go on. Hazard a guess or two…" Regina leans forward and around and kisses Emma's throat, bending her head back in a way that makes her exposed and vulnerable. Her tongue is firm and warm.

When Emma has to swallow, she also has to move her head away. She is breathless when she looks at Regina who zooms in away, nuzzling beneath Emma's ear. "I don't know…I can't say any more than that. You have to tell me the omigod…truth…" Emma can't stop freaking out over her damned throat being kissed. She had no idea it could be so distracting. "Jesus, wait, ok, wait…"

Regina pulls back with a sigh and slumps back on the couch. "Only if you promise I can do that again. Tomorrow or the next day. In bed. With your hands tied up above your head."

Shaking her head, Emma suddenly feels herself pressing against her zipper. She swallows hard, grabs a pillow and covers her groin with it, and then says "Ok," really quietly.

"I'm going to go now." Regina's voice is deadly calm. "I do love you." She glances down at Emma's lap. "And you need to purchase looser clothing. I worry about your…health." She smiles hungrily.

"Dammit, ok, fine. Jeez. And I know how you feel, that's really…" She wants to say 'amazing' but she chokes up. Her hands are damp and her heart is racing. Emma swallows hard and watches Regina put her coat on.

Minutes after the door closes behind the other woman, she calls Ruby and voices her suspicions…


	9. Chapter 9

Emma's life only gets weirder in the week to come.

She sees Regina around town with Gold and with Henry, but other than exchanging a smile or a little small talk, they are too busy to follow through on Regina's original wishes. Regina seems intent on spending her time with Henry while Emma concentrates on tying up loose ends at work and campaigning for Sheriff.

Ruby is convinced that the spy they had been searching for is working for the local florist. The information she receives makes her increasingly confused.

"We're looking for an ex-cop turned journalist." Ruby taps on her computer at the group home, inputting intake notes even as she chatters with Emma about the so-called spy. Who, by the way, likely posed as a therapist with false credentials." Her hands fly in the air and she sits back heavily in her chair. "Really? Who would become a fake therapist?"

"That's strange." Emma undoes the tab on Ruby's coffee cup lid for her and places it carefully to the side of the computers and her friend's flailing hands. "I had a therapist once who did that. He left town, I never saw him again." She leans back in her own chair and glances over at the 'Swan for Sheriff' signs lining the wall. Regina was right—the campaign is pretty well locked down. Nobody wants a post that is so dangerous.

"What if it's the same person then?" Ruby laughs out loud. "I mean what would be the point…" Her voice trails off and she watches Emma. "Unless you're somehow a part of this whole mess we're in and you've been lying all this time?"

"If anything I'm a pawn." Emma says the words absently, brushes a crumb from her blue dress shirt. "Besides, there is no conspiracy. Isn't that half the problem?"

"There may be one yet. Look at this." Ruby slides a pamphlet Emma's way then shoots to her feet and locks the office door. "Mind control drugs. They're being used on the soldiers—on both sides. But get this," She turns with a flourish and says dramatically, "it's to chill them the fuck out! Users experience euphoria and other good stuff. Side effects include hallucinations, drowsiness, in other words the complete inability to fulfill one's work duties. Honestly—it's brilliant. And the whole thing is ending the skirmishes in the larger cities because the heads of the armies can't keep up with the suppliers of the drugs."

"Who would benefit from that? Emma chuckles. It's a pretty cool idea but there has to be a catch.

"Whoever is manufacturing the drug, I suppose. And selling it. but to whom are they selling it and why? And how does it fit with the looming third party in this mess?"

"The third what?" Emma leans forward and puts her elbows on her knees. She is starting to wonder if the coincidences in this absurd town are really just that…

But their conversation is interrupted by Kathryn, who knocks on the door. The youth want all staff present for some performance or presentation, so Emma and Ruby are distracted for the rest of the afternoon.

The day of the election comes and Emma dresses and prepares her speech with enough nerves to make her throw up her first cup of coffee that morning. Since she is still officially the only person running, her speech needs simply to reassure the town that they aren't making an unwilling error.

There are about two hundred people shuffling around or sitting in hard wooden chairs when Emma arrives at Town Hall. Ruby and her librarian girlfriend are chatting by the town statue of a giant fish out front (no one knows how it became their symbol but there it is). Granny and the hackers are milling about by the front doors. Emma suddenly has a sense of some occasion that goes beyond just this election.

The feeling only heightens when she spots Regina in the audience—front and center—smiling demurely in a black pencil skirt and red blazer. Emma's heart skips a beat and she trips and hits a wall with her shoulder on her way backstage behind the speaker's podium. Regina's expression changes quickly to alarm and she gets up, but Emma waves her back and smiles goofily.

When Ruby joins Emma backstage, the first words out of Emma's mouth are:

"I'm totally in love with her." She grins. "And I think I know what she's been up to all this time…"

"Not the time and yes, I already knew that you were smitten." Ruby straightens Emma's shirt and punches her in the shoulder for luck. "As for the rest," She adds, "Later. Ok?"

The speech goes just fine. Emma says some things about restorative justice to counter the iron fists amongst the group and then the Mayor asks for any other candidates. When enough time has passed without dissent, the Mayor declares Emma to be the new Sheriff. It's sort of weird. The Mayor looks really moved by the whole thing. Emma is too distracted to think about why that might be…

Within an hour of her victory, well before her celebratory dinner is scheduled, she drives quickly to Regina's place.

The Mayor's favored advisor finds her Sheriff in the greenhouse.

"Where are they?" Emma gestures to where the mysterious flowers she had wondered about should have been. She jams her hands into her brown leather jacket and when she turns around, Regina mimics her gesture.

"I obviously used the flowers, Emma. What do you want to know about them?" Regina smirks and shrugs. "Oh, and by the way," She moves closer and for just a second Emma is nervous. "I have to mix the extracts with two other chemical compounds for the effect I need, so you can't trace one item to me and make some career making accusation."

"I'm not…_accusing_…" Emma mutters. "This is so beyond my jurisdiction, I don't even know what to say about it." She shrugs and looks back at the empty beds. The greenhouse is larger than it was even a week ago. It has long connecting segments that can be lifted to make way for summer gardens. "Why?" She asks.

"That's not a very interesting question." Regina is close now. She takes off her long black jacket and places it neatly aside. Her hands reach for Emma's jacket and peels it from her.

"What are you ummm…doing?" Emma swallows hard, still sort of overwhelmed. "Are you…I mean are you the new head, of the third order?" Regina's fingers toy with Emma's zipper and then she's kneeling and Emma doesn't bother stopping her.

"No, don't be silly. I don't want to be the figurehead of some corrupt party. I'm a businesswoman." Regina sighs against Emma's hipbone and uses her hands to warm the other woman, rubbing slow circles on her belly. She lifts herself higher and looks up at Emma for permission, both eyebrows raised, a wicked smile on her lips. Emma nods and says "Oh fuck me dammit fuck omigod…" and starts to shake. When she takes Emma's fullness between her lips and sucks gently, Emma's knees nearly give out. Regina pulls away briefly and says "Congratulations Sheriff Swan…" before stroking and sucking and using her free hand to pull Emma's jeans down lower.

They are far enough back in the greenhouse that no one can see them, but Emma is still trembling with nerves and has to kneel. She uses her jacket and then Regina adds her own and then they kiss, for the first time in days, and it is like waves and waves of stupid-juice flooding Emma's brain—that's what she calls it later, stupid-juice, like she's some fifteen year old and her hormones have taken over her intellect completely.

For now, in the moment, Regina makes her lay back and moves between her knees. She licks the length of her and asks permission quietly to move lower. Emma nearly sobs at the touch of Regina's tongue against her cunt. She covers suddenly moist eyes with one hand and grabs for the hand that had worked its way into her shirt.

"Ok?" Regina looks up and smiles reassuringly. Emma nods and lets her continue to experiment, licking and sucking different parts of her, finding sensitive ridges and smooth spots and firmness covered in such soft skin.

"Come up here…" Emma gasps when she feels herself getting close to coming. She wants Regina naked. She makes Regina stand with her hands flat on the wooden bench beside them. Emma feels hot and frantic but kept her movements slow and her hands gentle. She has to stop, to move Regina around and atop her, to get as close as she can. Her back presses to the wooden floor as Regina moves against her.

"Oh you're so good…"

Emma felt a jolt of desire at Regina's words and has to dig her fingers into those fast moving hips to slow them.

"Oh, so you like hearing how good you are?" Regina chuckles in Emma's ear and traces it with her tongue a moment later. Then she leans back and cups Emma's face, drawing her in for a deep and languid kiss. "You like hearing how hard you make me come? How much I want you? So do it…" Another kiss, drawing Emma back against Regina until their arms are wrapped around one another. "Do it…" Regina whispers, "Make me come…" She grinds her hips up and down for a minute, sucking on Emma's neck, and then uncharacteristically shouts "Oh fuck you are good, fuck, fuck, _fuck_!"

Emma laughs quietly, burying her face in Regina's hair. "Someone is getting a little overenthusiastic." She touches Regina's hips to slow her down again. Then she makes Regina lie on her back. "I want to taste you." Emma's eyes ask for permission that Regina freely gives. There isn't time to_ take_ her time, so Emma strokes herself, she licks gently then sucks Regina's clit in rhythm with her own hand.

After Regina arches her back and cries out, Emma stops and pants against her leg, laughing at the wetness now covering her own clothes and hand. Regina had already gone a long way to making Emma feel comfortable in her body but this is some deeper level of security and safety and just warmth.

They throw on their clothes as much as needed and race to the house to get ready for dinner. "We are talking about all of this other stuff later, you know." Emma reminds Regina as they share a glass of wine and clean up. Regina lends Emma a black sleeveless dress and dons a red dress of her own. They finish doing their makeup and hair with little time to spare.

Before they leave, Regina lays a hand on Emma's arm and stops her. She tilts her head and looks the new Sheriff over. "Ok." Regina decides. "I will lay it all out for you." She smiles when Emma kisses her again and again. "You won't like a lot of it…" Regina chuckles as she walks out the door with Emma trailing behind her.


	10. Chapter 10

Of course Regina doesn't lay out _anything_. She evades every attempt at questioning and she generally makes Emma feel a little foolish for even trying to find out whatever it is she's hiding. For her part, Emma starts making passive-aggressive statements about all of Regina's evil plots. She wonders if she's just getting too involved in the whole law and order gig.

There is also something happening at the Mayor's office. It is something that is stressful enough to make Regina go all quiet and distant and the Mayor a complete shadow of herself. Whatever it is that's bothering them both, Emma is assured that it's something they share in common—some common struggle Emma herself is obviously too stupid to understand.

"I'm not an idiot, I can be trusted." Emma grumbles and stabs her fork into a piece of lettuce. They are at Regina's place for dinner. Regina has made an elaborate meal with locally sourced lamb chops, a salad with feta and hot peppers, and risotto with wild mushrooms and peas, and she is now eating it daintily while watching Emma like a hawk.

"What is going on in that mind of yours?" Regina asks. Her blouse is silky and red and her belt is thin and black and Emma has a moment of wondering if she accidentally started dating her old grade school principal.

"You and your plans to take over the world." Emma says. Yeah. She's definitely getting _way_ too deep in her job.

They glare at one another for a moment before Emma gives up first. Sometimes she thinks they have a really weird relationship.

"No one thinks you're an idiot." Avoiding that last statement, Regina shrugs and stuffs a hot pepper and some feta cheese into her mouth. Her cheeks redden and her eyes glaze over with pleasure. Nothing gets Regina in that state quite like spicy food.

Except maybe sex. That's an easy one.

Emma smirks at her lover and returns to her dinner.

She spends the next day is spent investigating an arms ring—an actual fucking weapons trade—in Storybrooke. Of all places…

There is a growing sense of unease in the pit of her stomach as Emma moves through the community gathering evidence. None of her interviews go well. Four people run before she can talk to them, and one guy tries to kick her in the shins _before_ he runs. She and her deputy resort to breaking down a door with a battering ram when three men in a boarded up house won't let her inside to question them.

On day six of her second week as Sheriff, Emma determines that the town is now under marshal law. The local magistrate had already stopped doing his job in favor of turning the town's courtroom into a gaming room.

"You can't declare yourself leader overnight." Regina says blandly when she hears the news. The District Attorney is a friend of Regina's, but he disappeared days ago.

"Don't worry, I still answer to the elected officials of Storybrooke." Which means Regina. Not Mayor Snow, not really—just Regina.

After that, Regina visits the Sheriff's office daily for lunch. It makes Emma feel cared for but it also makes her feel like a sucker for letting herself be monitored…

"How's Henry?" Emma asks one afternoon. She finds herself chewing slowly to prolong their time together. Regina is wearing a grey silk blouse that Emma herself once borrowed after a night of debauchery.

"He's good. We should all have dinner again sometime." Regina answers absently, flipping through pages of Old Empire spy-ware photographs. "He likes you. By the way, did you know that Gold paid nearly thirty million dollars to have minute cameras installed in the brickwork of every coffee house in Boston, Chicago and New York? What do you suppose he's planning?"

"I thought we weren't calling those cities by their old names." Emma scowls. The business of Old versus New versus People's (a sudden third party known by name only because graffiti artists had been tagging city buildings for weeks) Parties…well it all hurts her fucking head. She knows that Regina is behind something big, some big conspiracy and that somehow it involves guns and biochemical weapons and spyware. And naming.

"Don't think so hard. I like how apolitical you are." Regina actually seemed pleased by the sentiment. "May I come over this evening?"

"Since when do you ask?" Emma grumbles.

"Ohhhh…poor baby…" Regina laughs and leans forward, rubbing the frown from Emma's brow with one thumb. "I'll make it worth your while. I'll even stay the night this time."

"Oh. Ok." That works too well. Emma slumps over her desk and gazes mournfully at Regina's cleavage.

The next afternoon isn't exactly productive. Emma can only interview the neighbors of the suspected arms dealers without any of the interventions she should be able to plan. If she could only use either the satellite technology of Gold's era, she could find those guns.

"Fuck that." Ruby actually shouts at her over the phone. "Leave that Big Brother shit out of our town. I'm not having a threesome with you and Regina if you're going to turn into a fucking fascist…"

Emma hangs up after a few choice words of her own and spends the rest of the day completely out of sorts.

Ruby calls back and apologizes just as Emma's shift ends. "Em…I honestly think that these rumors are just that. Rumors."

"Why though?" Emma sighs. Ruby's apologies often begin with lectures.

"I'm sorry I called you a fascist. Anyway." There is muttering on the line as Ruby talks to someone else in her office. "_Anyway_. The point is. There aren't any guns. I mean they're probably aren't any guns. Not in Storybrooke. I think Gold wants you to ask him for help. Honestly, that's what I think. If you do, if you ask him for his help, we'll never get away from him. _That's_ what I was trying to say before…"

When Regina comes over later, Emma suspects that her own business has already spilled to the Mayor's 'advisor'. They sit together on the couch and Emma glares suspiciously at her lover.

"What about those family compounds you planted at the edge of town?" Emma asks.

Regina shrugs. "What about them? It's all just an exercise in sustainability. Did you know that the water wars have led to nearly a million dead in Canada? Canada in the midst of a civil war! Who saw that coming? Probably Canadians…I mean they probably saw it coming…" She shakes her head then stands and takes off her jacket.

Emma does and says nothing. She sits with her arms crossed. Regina starts to unbutton her blouse slowly. Then she straddles Emma's knees. "Work was very, very stressful today. Lots of reports of the Sheriff insisting on illegal searches and harassing phone calls all about town…What on earth were you up to exactly?"

"Ummm…my job. Why are you getting naked?"

"Because I've had a stressful day and you're being grumpy." Regina's words remind Emma of a time before they cared about one another—before sex became more than just a part of the job.

But Emma's words are muffled by insistent lips and she takes her cue, lifting Regina up and onto the couch. Whatever is going on is stressing Regina out—it is so familiar that Emma falls into her role easily. Which is reassuring and annoying all at once.

"You know what Regina? _This time_…this time you'll do as I say…" Emma speaks calmly. Then lays Regina across her lap and caresses her bare ass. She fucks Regina slowly, leisurely, watching her fingers disappear between round cheeks, while Regina complains loudly about the ineptitude of those around her.

"Don't they realize what I _do_ for them? What I sacrifice?" Her hips wriggle back and forth, meeting Emma's fingers in and then out. "And you! Goddammit, Emma, you're supposed to be loyal to me!"

"I am, baby, you know that. I just need answers." Emma doesn't usually call Regina 'baby' at times like these, but times have changed. "I'm on your side…I just need to know that you're on mine…" Her fingers are slick against smooth hot skin. She uses her thumb to stroke Regina's clit. Emma can feel that little spot that gets hard and extra sensitive and she concentrates a steady motion there. Soon Regina is shaking and

"Better?" But before Regina can answer, Emma smacks her on the ass. It isn't hard, but Regina yelps and flips over in her arms.

"You are far too dedicated to your work. It's only been a few days. Do some paperwork, relax a little, stop poking around town." Regina punctuates each word with a kiss.

"So…you're saying…" Emma leans back. "That I'm too dedicated, perhaps even too good…"

"Let's not go that far." Regina chuckles against her ear. Her hands rub Emma's shoulders and her legs spread again.

"Yet you still support me. Even though you have secrets you don't want me to find out. Even though I know that you have secrets. Even though I know that you know…" The finger that mashes against her lips doesn't slow Emma for a second. "You support me no matter what. No matter what is at stake for you?"

"Yes. Now give me another orgasm then make me dinner." The enigmatic smile isn't enough to erase some deep worry in Regina's eyes.

For the first time, Emma wonders just what it is that Regina is doing to _herself_ much less to the rest of the world. She kisses her very gently, worried now about the woman she can't help but love.


	11. Chapter 11

Sex has always been easy for Emma. As long as no one can touch her—physically or otherwise—she feels safe. Fucking women is an art. And afterward, she can stand back and admire her good work and then be on her way.

Except that now she feels like a total ass for even presuming such things.

Worse, Emma feels a whole bunch of other competing emotions that are so odd and out of place she doesn't know what to do with any of them. Even as Regina pushes against her hand, even as she moans and strokes herself, Emma has bizarre thoughts about death and dying and the end of their lives together and whether they'd make it as a couple because let's face it they are really dysfunctional…

"Hey, what's wrong?" Regina stops. She is breathing hard and her chest is flushed dark and there is a thin sheen of sweat on her neck that Emma wants to just lick. And bite. Definitely bite.

"Nothing." Emma mutters unconvincingly. Her hands shake and she clenches them into fists.

Regina straddles her thighs and tilts her chin up. Instead of answering her, Emma slides down on the couch.

"Oh it's like that, is it?" Regina braces herself on the back of the couch and rocks against Emma's mouth. "Now who's using sex as a distraction?"

"Shut up and come for me." Emma orders and smacks her ass again. The worries are shoved down and she is able to just do what she does best. And she does do Regina best. No one else is good enough for the woman who now strains and struggles to let herself relax enough to feel pleasure.

After she comes, Regina lays limp and spent in Emma's arms. She says lazily, "Do you want me to take care of you?"

Emma turns her gently and gets up. "Not now. I'm making that sauce you like."

"You're the sauce I like…"

Emma boos at that one and hears the dirty chuckle that follows.

She is distracted while she cooks, but it's not all bad to be padding around barefoot while a gorgeous woman lounges on her couch naked. Of course she scrambles the eggs instead of making a smooth sauce, and the bacon is slightly burnt in places, but when she hands Regina a plate of the gluey pasta, she receives nothing but praise.

"I messed it up."

"You make it just the way I like it." Regina tucks in happily while Emma throws a blanket over her.

After dinner they decide to get fully dressed again and make their way to Archie's for a drink. When they arrive, there is some lively discussion going among at least sixty people, about the People's Party and a revolution starting in various parts of North America. Emma perks up when she hears about activities on the outskirts of Boston. Lively political banter, which quiets briefly when the Sheriff hones in on it, but then livens back up again when Regina encourages everyone to continue.

"You can't keep the people down, Emma." Regina is _tanked_ by the time they leave. Emma only had one drink so she is ok to drive them back to her place. "The people united will never be defeated."

"What are you, a Marxist?"

"What do you have against Marx? Have you ever read Marx?" Regina's tone is curious, not condescending, and implies a fair amount of ambivalence. Still, Emma wonders whether she'll have to start the world's most boring reading group soon…

"No. But. Well, no. Just…uhhhh…I don't know, Regina, you should like you want…I mean what do you want?"

"Freedom. Not power. Freedom. That's my big baaaaad secret my love. Also, I not-so-secretly want you to fuck me, seriously, right here, in the back of your gross Sheriff car." She hiccups then and her face pales.

Instead of doing anything in the back of Emma's car, they go back to Regina's place. She puts Regina to bed after forcing a glass of water into her and lays awake holding her, watching her sleep.

After a half hour, Emma sneaks out of bed and finds her cell phone among discarded clothing in the living room. There is some buzz in the air, something that makes her feel agitated as much as excited.

Ruby is sleeping but Emma keeps calling and eventually asks Ruby for the Net news she has gathered over the last month. Not for work, not for spying, just for the sake of forming her own opinions. Ruby is so excited by the request that she ignores her own fatigue and listens to a half hour of her best friend's rambling questioning. Then she invites Emma over for dinner the next night.

They have dinner three nights in a row in fact. Emma camps out in Ruby's living room smoking cigars, drinking wine and discussing the new political arrangements under dissolved and dissolving states, the economics of water, and other things that seem less boring when Emma realizes how much they impact her daily world. All of this happens while Regina and Mary, Archie and the hacker 'Dwarves' (and even the librarian when she and Ruby decide that they're 'on' again) meander through the house, all immersed in their own schemes…

"Those three guys you busted in on?" Ruby blows a ring of smoke around Emma's head and points at her as she talks. "They have a water source. They share water with their neighbors and they've been waiting for someone to come and take the part of their property that their well is on. How many of us have our own wells? Can you count higher than six? I only know of six, maybe seven of us, and once the water company jacks its prices we're all screwed."

"Oh." Emma thinks about Regina's well and the odd constructions around it that she's made. "_Right _I think I remember something about all of that." She realizes that Regina's chattering one night about taking the water company away from its current owners and turning it into a publically owned utility makes a little bit of sense. "Well, I don't think Regina will let that happen."

"Oh no?" Ruby smiles and passes Emma another beer. "What makes you have such sudden faith in her?"

"Whatever it is that you're hiding as well as whatever it is that she's hiding." Emma's buzz is definitely giving her a false sense of logic. Ruby just smiles at her in this really amazing way.

"I love you, you know that Em?"

"Yeah." For some weird reason this makes her choke up a little. "I know."

Regina walks in and leans on the doorframe. She has a look in her eye that will soon haunt Emma.

When they get back to Emma's place at around midnight on that particular night, Emma grasps the back of Regina's neck and pulls her in roughly. It takes a bit of maneuvering, but their clothes are discarded in the front hall and their mouths barely part.

Regina finds herself thrown onto her back, her writs pinned. When Emma goes for the cuffs, her eyes widen. "That can't be legal…" While Emma fastens her wrists to the posts she adds, "We don't even have a safe word…"

"Don't need one. This isn't about sex." Emma thinks it over and shrugs. "Ok, it might become about sex…"

"What are you talking about?" Regina jangles her cuffs and glares.

"If it does, your safe word will be 'biotechnology'."

"That's weird…"

Emma interrupts Regina by lifting one of her legs and smacking her ass. Then she settles between, that one leg hitched up over her shoulder, and presses her fingers, firmly but without movement, to Regina's clit.

She stays like that for long, long minutes, until Regina begins to squirm.

"Hurry now. We don't have all day." But there is something desperate in Regina's voice and she can't keep her eyes from flaring.

"Change of plan…" Emma decides. She strokes Regina from her clit to her ass.

"Oh good, that's a good change of plan…" Regina starts to moan as Emma's movements become firmer. "You should definitely fuck me. That is definitely a good plan."

Then, all at once, Emma pulls back, tears off Regina's underwear and then strokes herself, hovering an inch from Regina's pussy.

She doesn't move any closer. But she does reach up and undo the cuffs. They put Regina at an awkward angle and she wants the woman beneath her to feel good. As she reaches, her clit brushes against Regina's stomach. She finds herself encouraged higher as soon as her girlfriend's hands are free, and lets herself be sucked and licked to full hardness. Then she pulls away again and crawls back between Regina's knees.

"Tell me everything." She says, biting her lower lip. She is hard. Hard and wet and…_fuck_…tonite this is definitely her dick and she's going to make Regina's beg for it. "Or we'll stay just like this for hours. For as long as it takes." Her fingers swirl down and around her other opening. She thinks she might want Regina inside of her. Soon, but not yet.

"Em-ma! Give. Me. What. I. Want." Regina tries to use her heels to pull Emma closer but she is also just watching, her eyes roaming the length of Emma hungrily.

"No." Emma leans down and licks around Regina's clit a little. She is way too light with her touch and when she pulls away again. Well. If looks could kill…

But then Regina's voice goes all quiet. "Why can't you just be in my corner? Don't ask questions, don't worry about the things that I do to protect us. _Trust_ me."

"Because you have one foot out the door and I can't stand it. Stop lying to me. You have to earn my trust by letting me have some sense of what the hell you're doing." Emma hunches forward then, feels herself engulfed by Regina's warmth, feels her resolve slipping. She moans and braces herself on her elbows.

Regina's breath hitches and her eyes suddenly tear up.

Emma is startled by that. The moment feels realer, heavier somehow.

"I can't tell you everything. Not yet. Please…" Even as she begs Emma to trust her, she moves her hips, almost resignedly as though she thinks that submitting will earn her Emma's favor.

"Hey…" There is some pulsating, blossoming warmth in Emma's chest. "Ok." She adds. "I'll…ok. Ok. I'm going to trust you." She sort of does, all at once, like maybe all of this was for a reason—even Regina's lies, even her deceptions, all for some grand plan that even Regina doesn't know about. Emma thinks she might be deluding herself a little. "I love you. Ok?" She buries her face in Regina's neck and slides deeper into her, pulling back slightly so she can reach between them and stroke Regina's clit in rhythm with her own hips.

There is a warm gush when Regina cries out and it pushes Emma over the edge, sending her moaning and shaking and coming so hard she sees stars.

They lay in silence for a long time. Regina interrupts saying, "Dammit, I wish you could get me pregnant."

"Yeah, me too." Emma decides after a moment. "Maybe I can help." She yawns and kisses the shoulder that her chin rests on.

"Hmm. Maybe." Regina sounds thoughtful. Her arms wrap around Emma's back and she holds her until they both fall asleep. "Then again, we might need some couples counseling before we embark on something so significant together."

Emma growls something that sounds sort of like agreement and lifts herself so her weight is dispersed evenly on the body she covers.

It is early when Emma hears Regina's voice again.

"Sweetheart?"

"Hmmm?" Emma feels as though she's only been asleep for an hour or two. She isn't far off.

"I don't think that you should worry about those silly arms trading rumors."

Now Emma is fully awake. "Don't tell me how to do my job and I won't tell you how to do yours." She turns and glares and it feels like they're back at square one.

"If you ignore evidence Gold has planted for you to find, I will reward you with breakfast. How does that sound?" Regina tries this instead.

"Reward me with something else instead." Emma decides.

"Predictable." Regina smirks and kisses her lightly. "I'm not trying to trick you. Just know at least that much…"

When Emma sleeps again, she dreams about little yellow birds that scream at her.

Dispatch wakes her with a call to the home phone at 3am, reporting a disturbance at the Mayor's mansion.

"I'm coming with you." Regina mutters sleepily from her side of the bed.

Emma's bare feet hit the floor and she struggles to wake herself completely. She yawns and stretches one arm up and over her chest. "Don't be silly, she's fine, no one got hurt." It is a matter of seconds then before she reaches for her jeans and tugs them over the briefs she had thrown on sometime during the night. As she dresses she leans and kisses Regina's cheek. "Go back to sleep. I'll be back when I'm through."

Mayor Snow—or Mary as she insists Emma call her by her first name—brings a pot of herbal tea and a plate of oatmeal breakfast cookies to the living room where the two women sit and talk.

"He says he loves me." This is the oldest story Emma knows and it consists then of telling some lovesick woman that her partner will change, he will get better…

"I'm sure he does love you." Emma takes a cookie and adds after a moment, "But true love isn't slamming into the front of your house with his pickup truck then barfing into your petunias and then running off in the night in his underwear…"

Mary snorts and stifles bitter laughter. "I'm pregnant. I shouldn't have told him while he was in recovery." Her hand strays to her belly which shows only a small bump.

"That's great. Congratulations. You're not responsible for his overreaction to the news though…" Emma breathes in and out deeply and stares straight ahead. She can't let herself be amused at David's actions—he sounds like an annoying man-child even if he doesn't seem dangerous. Besides, her job is to take all precautions.

A Deputy is parked in front of Mary's home and Emma calls Dr. Whale to check on her.

The contractors are already setting up their equipment to fix the front of Mayor Snow's house by the time Emma drives away again. She chuckles and shakes her head. Regina really is like the little dude behind the curtain in Oz. She controls most of the town without anybody realizing it.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey all,**

**So I don't know why this story veered in the direction it veered in, but here it is. Regina wants a baby. Is that cliché? I don't know, maybe. Who cares. It's her life. I felt like a bit of a dork writing parts of this but it all just slipped out. I'm not sure if this is my favoritest of chapters, but it might actually be just that—my faouritest of chapters**** either way thanks for reading, if you love it or hate it, I appreciate the feedback.**

Times goes by and they all become comfortable in some kind of limbo. Between worlds, between events, just before something life changing and real…

Some nights, Emma dreams of familiar entrapments. The group home staff she once lived with, her teachers, foster parents, and various other characters from her past—including the guy at the deli in Boston who used to call her 'dahlin'—all populate her dreams like warning shots. In the one she remembers best, she and Regina are back in Regina's old office. It is totally a sex dream. Emma's pants are off and she is discussing the weather while Regina licks her in long, delicate lines. Emma wakes herself with a moan and then opens her eyes, confused at her surroundings.

Regina's still at work even though it is 3am. Also, Emma is in Regina's bed and she somehow managed to get all of the covers tangled up and around herself.

She gets up for a drink of water and then sits at the kitchen table. It takes a while for her eyes to adjust to the dim light cast by the industrial coffee maker with its little bright green clock and the moonlight reflected from the silver surfaces of other appliances.

The sound of a series of beeps as the front deadbolt's security code is punched in, signals Regina's return. If Regina is surprised to see Emma sitting in the dark when she flicks on the kitchen lights, she doesn't let on.

"You look tired." Emma speaks softly as though there is someone else to wake up. She holds out her arms and Regina steps into her embrace.

"Work, work, work…" Regina sighs then laughs as she feels Emma's fingers fumbling with the zipper on her slacks. "Oh really?" She asks. It's rhetorical though, because her lips are quickly pressed to her lover's neck.

Though the kissing is distracting, Emma manages to tell, "I had odd dreams. I hate it when you're so late to bed." It takes a minute or two and some unsexy grunting and swearing, but finally Emma gets most of Regina's clothes off. She hoists Regina onto the kitchen table and sits back in her chair. "Tell me about work," she only half jokes. Really, she does want to know, even as she spreads Regina's thighs and stares at her exposed body.

Regina squeals as Emma's tongue goes right for her clit and shakes her head with a laugh. "We have other things to discuss…" She almost swears while Emma delves in thoroughly, laving with her tongue, circling her clit.

"Tell me what you did today." Emma pulls away with a smirk.

"Fuck you. Dammit." Though Regina tries to wrench her hips back up and against Emma's mouth, it is to no avail. "Fine, all right? I started my morning with some ridiculous taxation problem, made even worse by the fact that our Mayor pays to two separate federal entities…"

So while Regina talks about work, Emma gets back to her own task, humming happily as she licks and sucks every fold and crevice. Sometimes she can't get enough of the way Regina tastes but it's her smell that makes Emma incredibly wet. Her fingers search for that soft opening and then she is inside, engulfed, and Regina gasps.

They get to the part about raising municipal taxes, when Emma gets bored enough with the work stuff to press Regina's swollen clit hard with the flat of her tongue, drive her fingers in and up against the rough patch of Regina's cunt, and finally suck her until she goes silent and shakes and cries out.

Through jagged breaths, Regina says, "Thank you for that…" She presses her hand to her own chest and stares blinking at the ceiling.

"Sure, sure." Emma gets up and pulls her close, nuzzles Regina's cheek, spreading her wetness there with a chuckle.

"Go wash me off." Regina swats her arm and hops off the table, following Emma to the shower. She is still quiet and seems tired, but they're connecting physically which is good enough for now.

Although…sometimes Emma wishes there could be more.

She and Regina are often so shut off from their feelings and this doesn't help the trust issues that percolate between them.

The elements of Emma's life have changed completely from years of lonely but comfortable solitude. The scent and warmth of Regina weaves through every part of her day. They sleep together most nights now. Regina's bed is always made, her sheets always crisp and white and silken on Emma's skin. The cream colored duvet makes Emma think of luxury and indulgence, even when they go to sleep without making love, it feels somehow decadent. Emma's room is all earth tones, like they're dreaming together in the forest or something less decadent but no less comfortable.

Now when Emma pads out of bed in the morning, there is coffee to be made for another grumbling human and an occasional shower to share. This is one way that Regina likes to wake up anyhow. Under cascading water, listening to Emma's dreams, holding on to her shoulder while she yawns and comes to life.

Then there are mornings like this one. When the night slips away unchecked.

It is 4am when Emma tells Regina about her dreams over the past week.

"Last night it was me, you, Ruby, Snow, and an elephant that had escaped from the circus. And we were having a picnic in a field and the food was really good. I think I ate Oreos. Only I was really sad because on one hand, the elephant reminded me of a circus I went to as a kid…"

"Did you fall in love with an elephant as a child?" Regina looks between then and then touches, fascinated by the flatness of Emma's belly and the curves of her thighs.

"Yes, I did. I've always thought they had such amazing minds. I researched everything I could about elephants after this one really old one stared right at me…" for some reason this makes Emma super sad. She hides the tears that have to be swallowed back. "In my dream, we had to return it. We had to return the elephant and I was suddenly really happy and really sad at the exact same time." She pulls back to look at Regina. It's 4:30am and they're both tired after working until midnight.

"Why Oreos?" Regina blinks and swipes water from her eyes. Then she leans and surprises Emma with a firm kiss. One, then two. She isn't stupid, it's obvious that her girlfriend is trying not to cry for some reason.

"Dunno." She knows but won't bother saying. The water is too warm though and the woman she loves too close, to give in to waves of confusing grief. When Regina soaps her hands and delves between Emma's thighs, stroking her to hardness, the sadness passes for a time. They end up back in bed, Regina on her stomach, Emma pressing her to the bed and thrusting slowly, almost gently, wanting to prolong it all. She lets the sheets slide down over her ass and then off of her, resting her knees on either side of Regina's before encouraging her up and on all fours. In this position, Regina wants it fast and hard, so Emma grips her hips and fucks her while they both watch in the antique mirror that rests against the wall. It's surreal, watching themselves like this. Dark sweaty locks fall over Regina's eyes and she reaches back to slow Emma down before clearing her vision. There are whispered words, mostly of affection, but Emma says she wants Regina on display so she has her up on her knees, still embedded inside of her, and those words turn wonderfully naughty.

"I'm going to fuck your pussy after this…" Regina says with a groan, reaching down to touch herself and rub her clit as she comes deep inside.

"Oh…ok…" Emma gasps, shocked at how turned on the thought makes her, and when she comes it's with Regina's hand between her legs, stroking her inner lips and circling her opening while her hips drive back against Emma's.

Both want another shower but choose sleep first which they manage an hour of before getting up for work again.

Being responsible for the town has its obvious downsides. For Regina, it means longer hours than she had ever kept as the head of _MillsCorp_. She also has too many secrets, of this Emma is sure. The secrets weigh on her. Sometimes Emma catches sight of a kind of darkness in Regina's eyes, as though there has already been some loss and she knows it might not all turn out the way she had hoped.

Emma's work routine starts earlier than ever, as more and more of Storybrooke start to mysteriously migrate to the town's edges. She patrols the borders and watches as entire extended families set up tent villages for no discernable reason. She is called in by the Mayor to secure abandoned homes in town and is ordered to leave the townspeople to their odd activities.

"Why is everyone becoming voluntarily homeless and why do we have a refugee camp at the edge of our town and why does it look like everyone is preparing to leave?" These are the questions Emma fires at a fatigued looking Mayoral Advisor who simply glares at her in response.

"I have other things to worry about." Regina snaps back one day. She scrunches her forehead and then kneads it hard, like she doesn't want wrinkles or something. She probably doesn't. "My appointments aren't going well and Henry is behaving bizarrely. He sneaks around trying to uncover some vast conspiracy..." Then her eyes grow wide and she sarcastically adds, "much like you! My goodness, whose child _is _he exactly?"

Emma is stunned into silence. She suddenly realizes that she hasn't asked one question about Regina's attempts to get pregnant. She's been deliberately avoiding the subject and it is most likely, most definitely a cause for Regina's stress. She says, "Let me help…"

For her part, Regina apologizes for snapping at Emma about something she herself refuses to even discuss. Still, she asks Emma to do her a favor and it's a big one…

Operation 'follow Henry around to figure out what he's up to' is the world's most ridiculous covert effort in the history of law enforcement. This is what Emma argues anyway.

First of all, Emma approaches the teen and straight up asks him what's going on. She takes the Cove out of Ops one Saturday afternoon, in between rain and Regina's demands.

"We should keep walkie talkies." Henry decides upon realizing he's been made. "In case I find evidence and I need your help."

"Help with what? Evidence of what?" They are sitting by the water, in a strange little children's play structure made of wood and pointy metal that Emma is sure isn't safe. It's a dreary New England day and Emma wonders why the kid doesn't have friends.

"My dad says that Regina—I mean my mom—uhhh…anyway, that she's trying to do something dangerous. Dangerous for other people for also dangerous for her. He says if I find out what it is, he'll…stop her somehow…" Henry trails off weakly at this last part.

"Maybe we should both talk to your mom." Emma decides. She shoves her hands in her brown leather jacket and watches as Henry scrunches his forehead in an eerily similar way to Regina's own stress responses.

They already have a dinner scheduled with Regina, for the following week, only now their Friday night is spent in silence. It is one part suspicion, on Regina's part, and two parts fear—radiating from both Henry and Emma as they try to broach the subject of…something. Whatever it is that Regina is keeping to herself.

At one point Regina glares at them both, chomps on a piece of rare beef, and narrows her eyes in the most frightening and yet comical way Emma has ever seen.

Henry and Emma burst out laughing. So Regina pouts for a good hour, makes her way to her couch, and stretches out with a glass of wine and a book and shouts, "do the dishes and discuss your conspiracies without me. And by the way, _Operation Hide and Seek_ is the stupidest name for a covert operation I've ever heard!" They hear her chuckle in what can only be described as purely evil.

"How did she know what we were calling it?" Henry wonders about Regina's abilities now, especially since the name was brand new and they only mentioned it once in passing that morning.

To make peace, Henry brings his mother a piece of pie and they talk quietly for awhile while Emma drinks her wine in the kitchen.

They may not both totally trust Regina, but they do love her in a deep and abiding way and neither will let her schemes get away from her for long. Or at least that's what 'operation newly named Lovejoy' is supposed to be about. Emma writes the name on a napkin and then Henry douses it in water and throws the napkin with its blurred content away.

"We're saving her from herself." Henry whispers while he and Emma finish cleaning up. "And from my father." He adds after a brief moment of hesitation and about one slowly washed dish.

It's late when Emma drives him back to his father's place. Henry surprises her with a quick hug before opening his door. She feels something odd, something foreboding as he walks away.

When she gets back, she finds the oddest surprise yet.

The lights in the living room and kitchen are off, so Emma ventures to the bedroom after locking up.

"You're going to help me." Regina says plainly when Emma finds her.

Emma stands there, blinking and gaping.

Regina is on the bed, naked, with what looks to be a cryogenic frozen head in a silver container, but which is more likely some kind of gross fucking 'donation' from a male…dude…or whatever, some guy or the guy, whoever Regina has been buying this from. Also, Regina as a Feeldo and a bunch of other sex toys.

So Emma just bites her lips to keep from laughing or freaking out, and slowly starts to take off her clothes.

"You sure about this? Isn't it a bit cliché? Plus, we haven't moved in together yet."

"_Yet_, being the important word." Regina shrugs. "Besides, you don't have to help me raise the kid, just help me make one."

"That's…rude." Emma decides while her socks hit the floor. "If I'm fucking you and making a baby with you, I'm fucking helping to raise it for fucksakes." She stands there in just a pair of yellow briefs with her arms crossed over her bare chest.

"So stubborn. Fine then."

"And we're going to couples counseling." Emma adds, "And I'm looking in your basement with or without a search warrant."

"What?" Now Regina looks frightened.

Whatever. It's such a random night, Emma doesn't care anymore. It's time to spill the beans.

"Also, I want to know who he is." Emma gestures to the canister and scowls. "I don't want him interfering in our lives."

"Of course not, darling, don't worry…" Now Regina looks _really_ guilty. It makes Emma feel bad for a second or two. But then she crawls into Regina's arms and kisses the worry away.

"You want this, on your terms, so I'll help." Her lips are pressed to Regina's neck which is suddenly beaded with sweat. She's really nervous about something. So Emma adds, "Tomorrow you can tell me more." Shit, she keeps _doing_ this. Putting off on making Regina fess up.

Something in Regina seems to snap a little. She nods vigorously and starts rambling, "He's a lawyer, clean bill of health, different than the last guy because the last guy seemed to have an issue Whale didn't tell me about…" This makes Emma growl. "I got my money back, don't worry." She pauses while settling with her heels around Emma's waist. They don't move. Emma doesn't look at her but keeps her mouth on her neck. "I ummm…may have dabbled in the creation of some…shall we say small scale nuclear weapon exchanges…"

There is a cold stabbing feeling in Emma's chest. She goes to roll away but Regina's arms are suddenly incredibly strong.

"I sold to both sides but nothing was actually armed."

"This is some kind of pattern with you. You sell shitty product to both sides…why?" Emma can suddenly imagine the fallout from this. She can see Regina on the run. For good. Alone. No wonder she wants another kid—another kid represents something she may never actually have. Stability, a family…

"I'm not on either side. Old or New Empire." Regina's got tears leaking from the corners of her eyes now. "I may need to run, to help with a new rebellion. But I'll be back. I just need to know that this is possible also. That I can come back to something."

"This is a terrible idea until you decide to stay." Emma realizes. "Even if you and I make some sort of commitment…" Unless that commitment_ is_ this whole thing. But then what? Will Emma just wait? Fuck. Yes. She will wait…and waiting will now involve Henry and possibly another much smaller child and two empty houses and a whole bunch of lies and secrets…

"We're years away from the ultimatum you're trying to give." Now Regina is really crying. This freaks Emma out even more. It takes a long time for her to calm Regina down.

But when she does, they make their plans. Together. Without any more lies…


	13. Chapter 13

Lovely readers! First of all, I want to thank you for sticking with this story even as it grows smuttier and more complicated with every chapter.

Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my new beta! Elodealeaf has been patient enough to read my nonsense over and take out any of my usual typos. I've edited a little more and as always, all mistakes are totally my own fault. I'm relieved and happy to have elodealeaf's help now

On with the showww…

…

There is still a revolution going on, all around them, at every corner of the globe and it's a lot bigger than anything anybody could have imagined. Yet the only movement in Storybrooke is one of mass exodus. Carloads, busloads, truckloads of human bodies and mysterious supplies, all move to the borders and then beyond. The mass education campaigns have convinced people—more than crisis ever could—that a new consciousness is necessary for more than mere survival.

Regina doesn't take one phone call or receive an iota of acknowledgement that she is this movement's leader. But every road leads back to her, and there comes a day when her presence in Storybrooke puts the town in danger. Of course the day doesn't announce itself. There are no uniformed people with guns who swoop in and try to arrest her. Instead, Regina figures it all out for herself.

Emma's life is similarly anti-climactic, even on the day when everything crumbles and reveals itself all at once.

They aren't in the midst of a quiet revolution and it isn't entirely non-violent either. It is all too hard to define. The enemy has become too slippery to predict, so Regina and Gold make an art form of knowing everything and nothing at once. Emma once found a notebook filled with Regina's writing on the subject of how non-violence isn't an actual thing, but a non-thing—undefined and therefore a trap.

Regina had been downright clingy all week, and now she practically drapes herself atop Emma at night when they sleep. A week after their private 'let's make a baby' party, they have a date night unrelated to making babies. There is a movie or two (Emma falls asleep more than once so she isn't sure) and lasagna and then Regina shoves Emma onto the bed and starts to lecture her about some political crap.

There isn't much effort behind Emma's seduction of the yammering woman straddling her hips. She doesn't find it difficult to distract Regina, and they don't spend a lot of time on foreplay, but there is something intense between them for one jolting moment, when Regina leans down and grinds her hips harder, kissing Emma's neck as she comes.

It feels like a strange sort of goodbye, though Emma realizes this much, much later.

She ignores the feeling of course, and tries to go to sleep. It is late and Emma is satiated and tired. She tries to roll over and take the sheets, but Regina has started to talk.

"We are leading this change," Regina says and adds, "but the only evidence of our complicity—of our leadership—is in a mass exodus designed to make our citizens look desperate rather than deliberate."

"Oh." Is all Emma can think to say. "What happens when everybody leaves?"

"Everybody won't leave. Some will stay behind and pretend that nothing is happening. It is essential that indifference continues to thrive even as we completely alter the world around us." Now Regina tugs the sheets away from Emma and wraps her arms around Emma's waist.

"They'll come for you. They have spy networks bigger than anything you or Gold can imagine." Emma snaps awake and stares at the ceiling at the thought of it all. She can feel Regina's hesitation and turns to face her. "Except…I mean…unless of course you designed most of their weaponry…and the information networks that Gold created have to lead to…"

"They double back onto themselves. Go to sleep. Don't worry about my plans." Regina snaps but her hands are kind.

Comfortable, content, and a little overheated, Emma finds herself dreaming about a group of singing nuns. She thinks that they might be singing an old Eagles song. Sure enough, they welcome her to the Hotel California, all while playing acoustic guitars…

In her dreams, Emma toasts the nuns with a pint of some amber beer. The beer has a snake in it and she nearly bites the thing's head.

Then someone is stroking her thighs and kissing her belly and telling her mushy things about how special she is and Emma is pretty sure it isn't a nun doing all of this…

It doesn't take long for Emma to wake and see Regina on her knees at the end of the bed. The sheets are nowhere to be found.

"Regina, you're staring at me." She squirms.

"Yes. I like the way you look. You're really sexy…" There is a flash of sadness in Regina's eyes. Her hands speak to the way she loves Emma, smoothing over her belly and breasts and shoulders, but then she gets down to very specific business. "I love how you're so smooth…soft skin at the base that eases seamlessly into your pussy…" To emphasize her point, Regina licks a wet thick line down from the tip of Emma's hardening clit down through her moist lips.

"Gina!" Crying out without meaning to, Emma's eyes roll back at the attention she receives.

"And I love how you come. My god. Beautiful. You tense your stomach and then relax, your energy opens, you let me in even when you're the one inside of me…" Then she takes Emma between her lips again. Regina's head moves slowly up and down as she strokes with her hand, sucking her simultaneously.

There are worse ways to wake up. Emma tangles her fingers in Regina's hair and lets her play awhile before nudging her gently away. "No. Watch me instead."

Emma's words make both women blush. Her hands are damp and shaking when she touches herself for Regina's eyes.

"Oh yes." Regina finally replies, settling back on her heels and stroking Emma's thighs. "Can I help?" Emma nods as Regina uses the wetness leaking from her as lubricant. She gently inserts her right index finger into Emma's pussy and then plays with her ass with her left index finger. When Emma moans and strokes herself faster, Regina slips both fingers in deeper.

"Omigod…that's so fucking hot…" Regina keeps squirming as she works both hands. She feels dizzy as Emma's leg spread wider for her.

When Emma looks ready to come, Regina lowers her head and engulfs her, encouraging Emma's hand on the back of her head instead.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck…I'm gonna come…fuck…right in your throat, oh fuck…'Gina!" Emma's knees come up as she comes, all senses at play as Regina's fingers fuck her and her mouth sucks. She lets Regina turn her over and gets up onto all fours as two fingers are slipped into her pussy. It stretches and stings and she gasps, rocking back against the touch.

"You're mine and I'm yours." Regina's voice is soft and deep. Her palm on Emma's back is warm. "Trust me…"

"I do…I do…" Emma thrusts backward, taking Regina by surprise. But then she swings a leg up and over Regina's hand and faces her fully. Those fingers continue to move within her, thrumming up against Emma's g-spot.

Regina leans over, kisses her neck "It's just me. You can trust me." Then she gives a smirk and sits back.

"You're not to come. Not until I say." Regina starts the conversation casually, still moving her fingers lightly. "No coming until you tell me what evidence you have against me."

"Oh no, that's not fair." Emma tries measured, deep breaths. Then she thinks about boring, mundane things. Her pussy clenches inside and she jerks her hips. She remembers that Regina has sold everything from nuclear weapons to chemical weapons to genetically engineered foods to New and Old Empire dictators and her libido takes a dive. Regina makes a noise of disapproval when she softens a little. So when Emma looks down her torso, she sees her girlfriend begin to rectify the situation, straddling her thighs and sliding the tips of her fingers through her own wetness for Emma to see. "Shit, shit, shit…not fair…" Emma groans and feels blood rush between her legs again.

"Tell me what else you know." Regina spreads herself and strokes her own clit with just her middle finger. When she lowers down again, she takes Emma's hardness inside with one smooth movement.

"I know you're responsible for a massive education campaign leading to the People's Party making some kind of revolutionary move. Something recent. Something that involves a march on at least four cities in the East." Emma reaches back and holds the bed frame with both hands. Regina rocks against her thighs and they both pause to catch their breath. "I also know…" Emma gasps when she feels Regina squeeze her deep inside. "I also know that…shit…uhhh…I've seen some of your writings…"

"You're not to come." Regina barks the order again but this time she's biting her lip and circling her hips and looks so turned on it undercuts her authority. "Did you make copies of anything?" She practically purrs with satisfaction when Emma shakes her head. "The less you know, the better, my love." Her voice is deep and throaty. "I do love you. You know that, right? I need to protect you…"

"I know." Emma gasps. _'I also know that you're planning on leaving me,' _shewants to say, but doesn't. Instead she moves Regina onto her back, pulls out of her, and kisses her way down her body. Emma imagines that they're somewhere else, somewhere hidden, maybe even on an island. When Regina's clit twitches against her lips, Emma kisses it, open mouthed, and flicks it with her tongue, until she finally feels Regina give in.

"Oh…ok." Regina gasps. "You win. I'll tell you one thing. Here it is." She swipes damp hair from her eyes and says, "I have to leave Storybrooke for a few months. Again, the less you know, the better. Also, you're in charge of Henry…"

It is mid-morning when Emma finds Regina in her cellar, just off the back hallway of her enormous house.

"Today is the day," Regina calls up to her.

"The day for what?" Emma stands at the top of the stairs leading down to a cellar where Regina keeps most of the worst and most incriminating evidence of her involvement in the People's Party.

It is a surreal day, whatever kind of day it is. They go for breakfast, make small talk with Archie. A few more carloads of people leave. The gas shortages haven't killed their ambition yet, but Emma knows that most will be walking by the time they reach the outskirts of the divided outskirts of Boston.

Gold and Henry join them for breakfast and neither says a word about anything unrelated to food or schoolwork.

An hour later, Emma and Regina go for a walk through town. The images of what might mean 'go' or 'convene' or 'who knows what we should do other than what we're inclined to do ourselves', adorn every square inch of what used to be the brick wall between Archie's and the shoe store.

"What is that? Ghostface or Guy Fawkes?" Emma squints and tilts her head at the black spray painted image.

"I have no idea what you're asking." Regina replies.

They run into the mayor, who is abnormally receptive to Emma's chattering questions, and keeps tearing up and grinning whenever Emma smiles at her. Mayor Snow leaves shortly after, claiming that she has work to attend to and then Gold walks by again and says something quietly in Regina's ear. A cold, sharp blast of air hits Emma in the eyes but she could swear that at that moment, Regina looked as though she might start to cry herself.

Instead of crying, Regina yanks Emma aside and says, "we have to talk."

Emma asks, "about whatever it is that you and Gold are up to?" But Regina just hugs her, suddenly and inexplicably. Her hands also soothe up and down Emma's back, it's distracting.

Regina snaps, "no, something else." She grimaces and steps closer. "Tell me what you know about your parents."

"A hard category to define. I had a foster family I liked once. I consider the foster father to have been a parent." Emma doesn't care for where this is going, but the paperwork she stole from Regina's basement hours ago seems to be pointing in this hazardous direction.

"Come home with me. We'll talk. I won't just try to get into your pants."

"You haven't…" Emma shakes her head. "You've not been like that. If anything you usually try to get me into your pants."

"Emma…" Regina's voice goes low and impatient. "Come. Home. With. Me. Now."

"Dammit, Regina, you're so…Whatever. Fine." Emma grumbles all the way. She stares at her boots and feels her heart hammer in her chest. "Let's go for a drive instead."

They sit together in Emma's car, listening to the rain and watching the choppy waters at the shoreline. The conversation is sort of anti-climatic because Emma had already started to suspect a lot of what Regina is saying. She saw the file folder from social services in Regina's stuff when she rifled through it weeks ago. It had been another rainy afternoon and for some reason, Regina had left her alone knowing what she would do in her house.

Now Regina tells her stuff like…

"I invented this town. I wanted something for you, for Henry, for whenever this whole world ended, I wanted to make the world anew…"

And then there's the kicker about Snow White and her alcoholic husband…

"It's time for you to know who your parents are, because when I leave, you'll need family around you."

Emma nearly storms out of the car then, but Regina grabs her and holds on.

"Your parents were too young to take care of you. Or something along those lines. Gold knows more. He arranged everything."

After Emma starts the car and roars back to town, Regina says,

"I should be in Boston right now. I may still leave within the hour. You have your mother. She'll take care of you…"

"No. Fuck you. You're not leaving us." She means Henry, but for some reason Emma also thinks about the town as a whole. Instead of letting Regina go to her rendezvous point at the town's edge, Emma drives them to Archie's and stands outside in the beginnings of cold rain to trap her girlfriend inside. She calls in a favor from her remaining deputy, all while Regina tries to figure out a way home—a way to reason with Emma.

"You can't go out like that." Emma nods at the flimsy dress Regina is wearing.

"I have people waiting for me. I have to go now or in an hour. Either way, I do have to leave. I'll see you again soon. I promise." It sounds like a lie and they both know it.

Emma's deputy has a boot put on Regina's car and parked his own car outside of the restaurant.

"I could just put him on one of the roads out of Storybrooke." Emma thinks aloud.

"No. Don't do that. Dammit…for his safety, all right? Don't put him out there." Regina rolls her eyes and sips her tea, sighing dramatically. "I know everything that happens in this town. Why don't you understand that yet?"

There is the sound of some loud bang in the distance, like a gong or drum. Waving a finger in Regina's face, Emma says, "You can't just try to have a baby with me and then just leave. It doesn't make sense." She is as reasonable as she can be, given the circumstances. "Also," she adds, "It's a shitty thing to do."

"You can't make people stay by chaining them up. That's not how life works." Regina shouts this as Archie brings her yet another glass of water and a plate of her favorite pasta dish.

"Words of fucking wisdom. Thank you for that!" Emma shouts back. The restaurant is empty and Archie seems intent on playing some role as silent witness to their fury. It's odd. The whole day is just really weird.

They all duck when the sounds of explosions resonate and shake the glass windows—even Regina, who planned the whole thing.

"What the hell happened?" Emma considers leaving to check the damage but the shock waves indicate something really major, something at a fair distance also. She isn't even sure what kind of medical response team they might have left. The town's only ambulance is still parked, totally empty, a block away from the restaurant. Someone had gutted it and spray painted 'Revolt Revolting Ones!' on the sides of it.

She turns to Regina who tugs on her arm and pulls them both beneath the table and asks, "What do you want me to do now?"

"Now you do nothing; now I'm stuck here." Regina closes her eyes and breathes deeply. "They…_someone_…just blew up the roads to and from Storybrooke. There will be plenty of rubble and no one will care to look for us for quite some time…"


	14. Chapter 14

**Empire:**

…_I've got one more silver dollar…_

There is a story being told. Regina's voice tells it, droning in and out between snippets of Emma's new favorite song. It has to do with murder and espionage (or something like that) and some other complicated stuff that Emma already knows about but had pretended not to. Sometimes it seems as though the world they live in simply follows a new set of rules. Marshal Law. Total anarchy. Except it isn't anarchy, because Regina controls way too much of it.

…_but I'm not gonna let them catch the Midnight Rider…_

There are always two things motivating Emma Swan—the first motivation is escape. The second, is to find truth in situations where she knows someone has kept it from her. Both are born from years of being lied to and abandoned.

She's already found evidence implicating Regina Mills—her lover and maybe girlfriend or maybe more—in a series of politically motivated killings. Part of her really wants to hold Regina accountable, but the other part just wants to ignore it and go home and sink into bed with the woman. To just not care. Because no matter how hard Emma tries, she can't muster the same enthusiasm as Regina seems to have, toward manipulating and altering outside circumstances to suit her own needs. She has simple wants and desires. Live a good life. Maybe even move in together. Make babies. Nothing more, nothing less.

She cranks the volume on her car radio and hopes to make sense of it all, sometime soon. The song is one she remembers hearing at a foster home once. Her foster mother at the time, had been one of the most self-sufficient people Emma had ever met. She was also aging and although she could still change the oil in her car all on her own, by year's end she'd given Emma back, because keeping up with a five year old kid _wasn't_ something she could do. It had hurt and Emma had gone back to some orphanage or other. Maybe Regina had been there, who knows…

Regina finally slams the on/off button and the song ends. Emma sighs melodramatically as Regina nudges her chin around and stares straight into her eyes.

They'd gone from the restaurant to the edge of town after the explosions hit. Apparently, there had been sink holes designed all around town, so that when Regina was ready, she could close them all off.

"There is half a mile of rubble all around us. The subsurface and buildings are rigged with anti-spy technologies, but we have something further that needs to be done." Regina fumes. "I am not a fucking _terrorist_, they are. The New Empire and the Old Empire and their propagandists and their fucking prisons for profit and conviction that no human group should be free in its own collective existence." It's been an hour since Regina's little plan was first enacted and she has a little time to rant about politics.

"I know. I know. I know that the governments have been working together and I know that they've been selling water and food and manufacturing starvation and…ummmm" Emma pauses, glances at her girlfriend. Regina looks stupidly proud of her for some reason. Then she continues and pride gives way to anger. "Gold gave me this list of instructions along with all kinds of top-secret bullshit about how you poisoned New Empire officials using a particularly lethal chemical of your own making, _after_ you spent years and years helping them to solidify their power over workers and women and…"

"The unions were working for the New Empire by the time I forced the media conglomerates to sell to me cheaply…" Regina interrupts.

"I don't know what to make of that." Emma shrugs. "The workers' revolution was never going to make the dent that the Fall-Out Communities were making. The revolution had dissipated and become some airy-fairy back to the land thing."

"And there was nothing that either government could do about it. So I switched sides."

"No…" Emma shakes her head. "You switched sides way before that. I think you were already creating strongholds before the workers' movement hit its stride. You also contacted Ruby, gave her information…"

"Like pieces on a chessboard. And now here we are." Regina's expression darkens. "And we have Henry…"

"Woah, woah, _we_ don't have Henry!" Emma sputters. "Gold has Henry. You're lucky you have full access!"

In the darkness of her car, Emma can swear, that for just a moment, Regina's eyes glow with anger. She thinks that the color might be purple but isn't sure.

"Are you ok?" Emma can't help but ask, even as Regina lunges across the divide and attempts to snatch the material out of her hand.

"Give me that envelope, I don't want you involved with anything that has anything to do with me and Mr. Gold." There is absolute terror in Regina's voice. "And for the record," Regina also adds, "that supposed chemical weapon, can be made with a series of household items. I didn't invent anything special in that case, I just planted rumors that a group of New Empire CEOs and chemical factory technicians were planning some massive attack. Most of what I've done is to plant false information. They want me dead because I used to work for them and I have too _much_ information. Get it? And I've been at this for a long, long time. You shouldn't worry about the details…" Regina looks worriedly over one shoulder. "Gold has been training me since I was a child."

They fall into silence. Emma doesn't get it, because she still doesn't know what it's like to actually see how all of the pieces fit together. Because Regina has refused to let her _see_ how all of the fucking pieces fit together.

The rest of their argument that ensues basically involves Regina barking all kinds of orders at Emma while Emma shouts about having had enough of that, until Regina ends it by saying—in her best possible psycho-tyrant voice: "Do. What. I. Say."

After a stunned pause, Emma shouts, "Noooooooooo…" She feels like a stupid kid. And it's shocking to her, still, that being ordered around by Regina can actually sort of turn her on. "Fucksakes." Emma mutters.

A smile plays at the corners of Regina's lips. She pushes her way out of the car, slams the door, and with a flick of her wrist, detonates a series of small blasts that destroy their dockyard.

"Fix this mess if you're so smart." Regina shouts then turns in another direction and walks away.

The fires go out as quickly as they had begun, and Storybrooke's main water route in and out of town ends up covered in smoldering ruin. The town now really does look completely abandoned.

An hour later, Emma goes to the hastily pulled together 'town hall' meeting that Snow tells her about once she drives back into town.

The only people left in town are Archie, Ruby, Snow her newly 'rehabbed' husband, Regina, Henry, Gold and Emma, and exactly three nurses and two doctors. There are also two members of the Fire and Rescue team plus one last member of Emma's department, but they remain in the woods, putting out whatever remains of Regina's fires before anybody can notice beyond their boundaries.

"Well done, Regina, you've planned for everything. We still have our medical team." Snow claps her hands together like an idiot. Emma sighs. A sweet idiot, but an idiot at times, nonetheless. Emma rolls her eyes and mimics the words, earning a rebuke from her lover.

"I'm sorry, are you capable of treating a fucking heart attack?" Regina growls at Emma who storms over to the Mayor's liquor cabinet and pours herself a drink.

"Actually, what you do is…" Dr. Whale starts to explain but is elbowed by one of his nervous nurses. He blinks and smiles and then says to Emma, "Congratulations by the…" and this time is elbowed by Regina herself.

While Emma guzzles alcohol in the corner, Snow stares longingly at her, then pretends not to be looking when her daughter meets her eyes. Her father apparently goes by his middle name now. David. Who the fuck knows why. His gaze is kind and not at all demanding. Which is nice.

"It'll be my birthday in four days." Henry cheerfully says, breaking the tension.

"Wonderful." Regina seems conflicted about this news for some reason. She accepts the drink that her sullen girlfriend hands her before asking, rudely,

"What's the problem Gina? Were you planning on leaving town?"

"Ok, that's enough." Leaning against her desk, Snow regards the two for some time. "Listen, how well are we hidden? I mean I know most of the details. There is no intelligence on this town, no satellite surveillance, but how big is our perimeter and how far will our communications run?"

"I've put us onto some rather archaic Intra-Net lines." The ring on Regina's left hand clinks against the glass of scotch she now nurses. Emma now thinks of it as her 'I married Satan' ring. As though her thoughts could somehow be heard aloud, Regina stares suddenly at her. Emma lifts her gin and tonic and smiles.

The half mile boundary is made up of craters and piles of rubble, and they're banking on the fact that Storybrooke was never mapped in the first place. Eventually, the town will become a haven, but for now, it can't be. Not with Regina in it. When Gold informs the room that Regina's survival means a great deal to the new revolution, Dr. Whale gives her a strange, searching look. Emma decides to keep a good eye on him. He looks almost jealous, as though he wishes he were the one the whole world were after. He also keeps shooting goofy smiles Emma's way and it makes her want to punch him.

They are instructed to stay as quiet as possible and to live only within their own limited means. Dr. Whale is gently but firmly instructed to give up the two adjacent houses he took over recently while Gold agrees to move in next door to Snow. Emma notices Regina watching the nurses closely and makes a mental note to check on them the next day as well. Then she shakes her head and sputters, "Fuck!"

The entire room pauses and turns.

"Sorry." Emma just cannot believe how easy it is for her to do Regina's bidding. Without being fucking being _asked_.

By the time Emma realizes how drunk she is, everybody in the room has received some sort of mysterious envelope. She points her finger at one of the nurses and squints. But before she can say _I'm keeping my eye on you_, Regina barks her name.

But then Regina gentles her tone, after Snow stares at her angrily. "Please come home with me, Emma."

The haze of booze keeps Emma from properly arguing for the right to go back to her own house and ignore everybody. So she just says "_Pfft_," points uselessly at the badge she has linked to her belt, and lets herself be led away. Once in her own car—driven now by Regina, of course—she hiccups and says "I'm the world's worst Sheriff."

"No, my love, you aren't. You truly aren't." Regina's eyes are so warm when she says these words, that Emma gets a lump in her throat.

Much of her night is a total haze from that point on. She sort of remembers trying to have sex with Regina and then being refused. She also remembers being eased into a tub of water while copious amounts of actually drinkable water are practically poured down her throat. By the time she passes out in Regina's bed, Emma has decided never ever ever ever to do anything that her girlfriend ever ever tells her to do. Ever again. Unless she has the actual reasons for doing it—whatever it is—in writing.

The morning alarm jolts her from a dream about zombies crawling over Storybrooke's borders.

Regina's hand is soothing but tentative. She's curled up in most of the sheets but takes them off to cover the now sweaty, frantically breathing woman next to her.

There is another sound, something unfamiliar, that brings Emma around. It's the sound of a cuckoo clock.

"That's annoying love." Emma groans, her eyes still closed.

"Oh, so now I'm _love_. Last night I was the anti-Christ."

"Haha." Emma rolls her eyes. Her bare feet slap on the wood floor as she makes her way to the shower. She remembers when her days were passed in solitude; when cooking elaborate and new inventions, and working were all she had to worry about.

When she emerges from the shower, she hears Regina talking to someone. It's Henry. So Emma hastily dresses in a beat up pair of jeans and a shirt made of some kind of flax seed or something. Regina made it for her, saying that the green threads set off her eyes. Henry and Regina smile at Emma when she gets to the kitchen and something aches in Emma's chest. She wants this domestic thing, wants it to work. And for it to work, she has to continually make new deals with Regina, to trust her, to let her maintain control. It's not a good resolution to an ongoing problem.

After breakfast, Regina shows Henry and Emma scans from large intentional communities in the Dakota Territory, and in Eastern Kanata. Both tracks of land were taken back by a mix of Native and Refugee communities and both feature some of the last vestiges of original ecologies, clean water, and sustainable food production.

"People are surviving. Even thriving!" Regina tells them. "All I did was run interference, making a little money on the side. Is that really so bad?"

Henry and Emma exchange identically skeptical looks. Before he leaves, Henry gives his mother a long, long look. Then he hugs her and says, "I love you no matter what you've done, you know. But you really should be a little more honest."

Emma is torn between wanting to cheer and wanting to tell him to stop being a punk ass, but Regina seems happy enough so she leaves it. It's odd, but the kid can say really shithead things and Regina rarely seems to get angry at him.

There is this heavy feeling in the air for the rest of the day. Emma catches Regina looking out her living room window every ten seconds. At the sound of what might have been a small plane, Regina greys and teeters on her feet, a cup of hot tea in one hand and a beer, for Emma, in the other.

"Hey…" Emma is startled by it and grabs for Regina's waist. "I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you."

She won't. And Regina knows it. The gratitude in her eyes makes Emma's chest ache. Her own pulse races but she smiles faintly and takes the beer offered to her.

It's just before dinner when Emma's parents show. They bring pie and a roast and identical, hopeful smiles…

…and, once again, it's all too much. Emma bursts into tears. Embarrassing, noisy, sobbing, and she wipes her nose on Snow's shoulder while David pats her back.

"It's ok…" Snow whispers. When Emma pulls back to apologize for the mess, Snow just shrugs, "I missed out on all of your snot and tears, so thanks," and she smiles brightly.

After they leave, Emma putters around Regina's kitchen awhile, cleaning and rearranging things. The coffee maker has to go in a cupboard and the fridge has to be turned off in favor of smaller and more practical options. Not to mention hot water heaters, solar paneling, and Regina's now empty but still functioning greenhouse…

So then Emma stomps into the home office, where Regina reads her favorite Poe anthology for the tenth time and pretends to look over some important paperwork.

"We're moving in together." Emma's voice cracks. She clears her throat. "I mean it's ridiculous not to. And you're not leaving. Ok? You can't. You can't…You…" She stops breathing properly and now it's her face going grey and her heart hammering so hard she worries it might burst. Regina tears off her glasses and rushes forward. The air itself seems flat and hard between them and Emma can't breathe in it.

"Just for a second…just let go…" Regina whispers it like a prayer and their lips hover close. "I will return for you. I will always return for you. No matter what happens…"

Emma's strangled cry is muffled against Regina's lips. She laces her fingers through dark hair, uses her teeth and tongue, pulls Regina to her like she's starving for it.

There wasn't even build up, not all day, there is only this explosion of tension that erupts from Regina's every cell. She pulls Emma to her desk and opens her lips.

She isn't in control any longer, not since Emma put her foot down. Doubt flickers in Regina's eyes just as Emma steps back and starts to unbutton her shirt.

They both smile. Some peace has been brokered. Still, Regina looks like she often does when she's intent on dominating. So Emma strips slower. She stops at her underwear which are thick and dark red.

"Go get that thing you bought." Emma gulps air for a second and her eye twitches.

"You sure…"

"Just go." With that, Emma tugs down her underwear and kicks it aside. She strokes her clit…dick…_both_…and touches her labia lightly. Regina lets out a weird sort of choked sound and rushes comically away.

"Ummm…so…" Regina comes back wearing the strap-on, and Emma raises an eyebrow before leaning down and over the desk. "Oh wow…" Is all Regina can say, kneeling, watching Emma's sex and the back of her clit, slowly growing in length and thickness as she thumbs the sensitive tip. There is a second of hesitation, but then Regina leans and gives Emma a thorough licking, sucking a little on her cock from behind, then drawing her tongue wetly through her pussy.

Regina is so pent up that by the time she slides inside Emma's cunt that it only takes two strokes—holding Emma's hips in a death grip—before she moans and comes, feeling her own clit get full and _hearing_ her own wetness against the back of the toy. She kneels again, apologizing quietly when Emma grunts in disapproval as the toy slips too quickly out of her. This time, Regina licks further down, toward the back of Emma's thick, heavy clit, saying all kinds of dirty things about how she had to be kept after class or some shit…

Emma cracks up but then bites her lip. "That's the role-play you want?"

"No." Regina pauses. "I want the one where you come in after hours, and I'm still your boss, and you've been insubordinate so I have to fuck you on your back on this harsh floor." It gets Emma wetter and harder so Regina keeps talking as she stands on her tiptoes and works the toy slowly around Emma's entrance. "Then I smack that ass and work you from behind…"

"Like this?" Emma gives permission, squirming backward. "Do it." She orders, earning the sting and warmth of one, then two, then three perfect slaps. The toy stings a little so she bucks and Regina pulls out until only an inch is within. The ridge at the tip of it hits her in just the right place, but then she moves back again, taking Regina deeper. They alternate like that, until Regina pushes Emma's head down, grasps her shoulder, and fucks her hard and steady.

"How do you feel?" Regina pauses, brushes a hand over Emma's back. "Stroke your dick for me, I want you to get it so hard you can't stand it." She bucks her hips and comes again, smaller this time, deeper, then gets her rhythm back. "Tell me how it feels…"

"It hurts a little…stretches…I feel like you're fucking me so deep…" Emma moans. "Don't you stop. You give me what I want for a change." She hunches further, gets up on her toes also. "Is that all you've got?" Her coy smile over one shoulder is enough to make Regina laugh, breathless and sweaty, still moving as creatively as she can. But then Emma thrusts back hard, and Regina loses her balance. "Let's move this to the bedroom before you twist an ankle," she decides.

"Oh well, that still feels better…" Regina says breathlessly, her cheek pressed to Emma's sweaty back. "You don't hate me anymore. Now you won't walk properly for awhile, but that's ok." She manages to smack Emma once more in the ass before the woman turns in her arms and hugs her, still smiling.

It sort of does make things better. Emma feels, perhaps foolishly, as though she's in control of at least her end of the relationship. And it also feels like victory, because for some reason, Emma is actually sure that Regina will still be there in the morning. Still, she can't control Regina and she feels lighter when she realizes that she has to stop trying.

The sheets are welcoming and the scent of Regina's bedroom is a comforting mix of lavender and thyme and a hint of the blueberry that lingered in the air after Snow had heated the pie for dessert. There is a stray thread on the pale green pillowcase that Emma's head rests on and she plucks at it as Regina kisses her shoulders and presses against her. Now the sex is slow and reverent, now that they're not stressed out or angry. There is a moment, when Emma reaches down to touch herself, when she hears Regina mutter something against her neck, something like, "Ok, you win…"

"What do I win?" Feeling powerful, sexy as she's being made love to, Emma sighs and arches one leg back.

"I'll stay. I was going to…whatever, I'll just…I'll stay. For you. With you." Regina mutters the words and there is a hint of doubt in her tone. Still, her hand is warm against Emma's thigh and belly and then her clit, stroking it and fingering the very tip. She moans when the first spurt hits her hand. Emma comes slow and so easy, opening for Regina like an orchid in full bloom, her orgasm unfurling and surging from her. She sighs with relief as much as happiness and turns in Regina's arms. Her mouth is soft and her limbs wrap around Emma like sanctuary.


	15. Chapter 15

****quick note all: Sorry for the lack of updates, Summery Summertime got in the way. Well mostly work did. Anyhoo, my beta gets props for even trying to deal with me. But this chapter is really a hack job and it ain't her fault! I spent a tonne of time on it and it just sort of wrote itself with odd twists and turns…I just really knew all along that Emma would find her voice somehow and stop moping I suppose!**

**Next chapter will be a little lighter…**

**On with the show! Thanks all**

_Capitalism is under siege, surrounded by a global tide of revolution. And this revolution, still without a center, without a precise form, has its own laws, its own life and a depth of unity—accorded it by the same masses who create it, who live it, who inspire each other from across boundaries, give each other spirit and encouragement, and learn from their collective experiences_ (Frantz Fanon, from _A Dying Colonialism_. Grove Press, 1965).

In her dreams, Emma runs through thick mud to leave Storybrooke. At the town's border, a small group of soldiers approach her. She wakes when their guns are fired. Her second-in-command—Deputy Greg Dell—is the one shooting directly at _her_. That is the last part she remembers.

The bed next to her is cold.

If she had to be honest with herself, like really, really honest, Emma would admit that a part of her was relieved. It was always a relief when someone left her first—because that way, it just validated all of her suspicions and finally alleviated the simmering continuous fear, that everyone _would_ leave. Shit—she really missed her therapist in times like these.

The panic hits shortly after, replacing relief of any kind. It's panic born of the realization that Emma has put something really important off for far too long.

She runs into the kitchen, skids on the floor, hits the wall…

And hears Regina's laughter.

"Well I'm glad I amuse you." Emma mutters, hauling herself up onto a kitchen chair. She crosses her legs and then her arms, weirdly shy about her nakedness, considering the things they did the day before.

With a shake of her head and another snicker, Regina retrieves a blanket and drapes it over Emma's shoulders. Then she pours tea, mindful to fill Emma's to the brim with milk. Archie's dairy cows are an endeavor Emma had once found ridiculous but now is grateful for.

Regina is chatty on this morning. Something is up, and it isn't all about her. She starts talking, meeting Emma's eye the whole time. "All that silliness, about genetics and psychic abilities, those were Gold's hobbies. He used us, sure, but he was as interested in money as anything else. I found this in my files this morning." Regina hands over an old newspaper. The Old Empire had declared itself as a unified entity—there would be no more sovereign or independent states, just one federated unit. Regina adds, "The New Empire rose, in the public eye, as a kind of antithesis to the federal model. As boring as it all sounded to the Net-Geek generation and blogging journalists, both governments were solidifying a totalitarian regime based on faked rivalries. In the meantime, they were selling every last resources that they could, while creating safe havens for the wealthy elites among them."

"It's a big early for the history lesson." Emma sighs and shuffles her drink on the table. "What does it all have to do with me, anyway?" Lots and lots, she knows.

"It has a fair amount to do with you, since you're the one person who knows most of my secrets." Leaning back in her chair, Regina lifts one bare foot and rests it on Emma's thigh. "And then there are those secrets that you have…"

Emma interrupts, "What time did you get up?" There are things that she's been avoiding, sure, but it doesn't matter now. Not when they're sheltered from the outside world.

Regina shrugs and sips her already cold coffee. "Early. Listen." She shakes her head and scowls, tugs nervously on her sleeves. The white blouse and blue vest make Emma think of their time in the offices of _Mills Corp_ together.

"They stripped us of most of our basic human rights, allowed for arbitrary arrests…but the problem was that any new attempt at creating an actual Empire, be it global or even just continental, ran into issues with natural resource extraction. I mean there was nothing left. The elites turned to nanotechnology, to prolong themselves as catastrophe unfolded. It was the end of Empire. But there was still money to be made, even when money became meaningless in many parts of the world." Scanning Emma's scowling face, Regina sets down her mug, "Now do you see why I wanted to leave? I wanted to leave before you ever got _that_ look on your face."

She lowers her hand to her belly, rubs there, subconsciously reminding Emma that there is more at stake now, even as she starts to list her own crimes. "I aided in the invention of synthetic drugs to keep entire populations subservient to new, controlled substances—drugs that Gold himself could oversee production and distribution of. I was 16 at the time. And do you know how Gold made most of his money initially? During housing crashes, he'd buy up homes and buildings and fix them just enough to rent them out to desperate people, then he'd up the rent more and more and more. I mean he managed to own entire towns—then he'd put those towns under lockdown, using private security forces to ensure compliance with his arbitrary rules. Once he tired of genetics, he shoved me into nanotechnology and told me to invent weapons spliced with organic and inorganic matter…it became crazy. I think he legitimately lost his mental stability for a long time. He only got it back when he received some of the information I did…"

Emma's jaw drops and she stays stuck on older pieces of information. She shifts in her chair, her blanket slipping. "_Sixteen_? You're some kind of scientific genius, right?" She thinks a second. "What did you do with the weapons?"

"Killed crops, mostly…" The 'mostly' hangs in the air a second longer than it should. She continues, "Then there was the catch with Henry. If I kept working with Gold, maybe I'd get to see my young child…"

"He dangled that in front of you…" Now Emma starts to squirm. How can they continue to live with Gold if he's going to pull that kind of shit. Sick or not, he's dangerous…

"Sort of. I mean…I got to live with them, really briefly, but I was too frightened to take on the responsibility so when I asked to leave, he wasn't easy on me." Regina does her impression of Gold's odd, sarcastic mannerisms. Emma laughs. "But yes, the hope of it, the possibility, kept me competing with Gold even as I remained tied to his schemes." She smiles, so sadly that Emma's heart skips and she feels a stab of fear. "I've had people killed, Emma. And once you find out why and who and when, you're going to want me to leave after all…" She pushes a photograph of Sidney. In it, he's smiling sedately—resigned to his fate.

Sidney, as it turned out, knew too much about Gold and Regina's operations in the water selling industry. He also found out that they'd put synthetic chemicals into the water that they illegally sold to other countries. By the time he had enough evidence, he was already a target.

"When did you change? Was it for Henry?" Emma fights nausea, wondering how much of Sidney's death is her fault somehow. She's like that guy in Snow White—the one who bumbles around the woods, murdering for the Queen. She feels like a fucking idiot.

"It was before I really saw him, and before I realized I had feelings for you." Now Regina grimaces. "I was sent pictures, of some of the things I'd been a part of. I mean sick people. Dead people. And decimated towns, places where nothing could grow. I still don't know who sent me those images, but they got through. Then you were gone and I was devastated. I went to a shrink."

"Is that what you're ashamed of? Seeing a shrink?" Emma practically shrieks the words and leaps to her feet. She storms off, wrapped in her blanket, looking ridiculous, and laughing sort of manically. "Omigod Regina…" She's just about certain by this point, that Gold and Regina are completely certifiable. By the time she throws herself into a tepid shower and starts to quickly wash up, she wonders if she should actually, finally, arrest them _both_.

"There's more I have to tell you." Regina shouts above the sounds of the pipes and rushing water. "I haven't lied, I just haven't told you the worst of it. And now I have to tell you the best of it but it had to be done this way in this order…"

"No!" Emma shakes her head and shoves the curtain shut again, only to have it wrenched back quickly by Regina, who gets splashed for her efforts.

"Emma it…I mean…it took…" Regina swipes water from her eyes and tugs on Emma's hand. "That time we brought home that…you know…sample…from the donor…it took…"

By the time Emma hears that pleading tone, those attempts at apology for Regina's manipulations and machinations, she has already started walking—hair still wet from her shower, clothes barely on properly—through the empty streets to Mayor Snow's house.

For a minute, when she reaches the town's center, she looks around at the silence, the utter stillness of their empty little ghost town. They have a new life. After so many lives had been destroyed.

And she's got the key to maintaining that peace. So it'll soon be time to stop pretending—to stop lying. Because at the end of the day, Emma Swan has been the biggest liar of all, _especially_ to _herself_.

The rubble beyond Storybrooke keeps her trapped within. So she lets herself be taken care of by her parents, for the first time ever, really. She sleeps away her afternoon in a guest room and eats a quiet dinner in front of the living room window.

The next morning, Henry comes over, as comfortable with the place as if he already lives there. He drinks the hot chocolate set before him and asks Emma if they can speak in private. "Are you breaking up with my mom?" The kid cuts to the chase. "Because I really like you and that'd be sad. But I understand, it's not really my business. She's pretty bummed out. I saw her this morning."

"She's home? Still?" Somehow this shocks Emma more than anything. Her eyes feel scratchy and hot. The kid smiles at her like she's an idiot—the same way Regina does sometimes. It makes something clench in her chest. In some ways, Henry has become the real reason she can't turn on Regina.

Henry nods. "Yeah, she's here. She's working on some more teas for my dad. Whatever she's been giving him, it's working. He's getting better. It's weird, like…ever since he got sick, he's been really sorry about everything."

"Kid, he told you the shit he's pulled?" Now Emma leans forward and touches his arm lightly.

"Some of it. I pieced together other parts. I remember, one time, he was kicking out this family of like twenty people—they were all living in this triplex together." Henry scratches his chin as he thinks back over the event. He looks angry, at first, but then amusement sparks in his eyes and he grins. "I stole a bunch of money from one of his safes and ran it over to them. They ended up buying the same building back and I got them more money for other stuff also, like water and plants. I think they're part of the resistance in Old Philadelphia now."

"Like mother like son." Snow calls out from the living room where she's _not_ listening in. Emma shakes her head. Snow and Regina's bond is crazy deep.

"Listen, Emma," Henry puts his hand over hers and she blinks down at it. He's the adult here and now and it's weird. "There's no end to it. What they did. It's like this fucked up maze." At 'fucked up', Snow and Emma both scowl, but he continues, "I think they're both trying to fix it all, but man, it's a mess. They're my parents though. I forgive them."

"She's pregnant." Emma tells Henry and Snow and David, who walk in then.

"That's two of us then." The Mayor is obviously just caught up in the best part of the news. She sits and rubs Emma's shoulder, less awkward than they were the day before.

"Why did you give me up?" Is Emma's response to the news of her replacement. She feels petulant and petty for thinking of it in those terms but whatever.

"Yeesh…" David mumbles and stares at his feet while Snow talks…

"Mr. Gold said he'd provide you with the best education, that he'd provide us with jobs." Snow pauses and looks back at her husband. "David started drinking soon after…he was miserable…I just kept thinking, maybe we could get you back, if we could earn a little, make a home together. Time for us, went quickly. We came here to Storybrooke on a whim, having been offered well paying jobs and having some political benefactor. I mean I'd been an administrative aid for a number of government officials, but to take on the Mayor's job…" Snow blinks and shakes her head. "And I kept getting all kinds of random, anonymous campaign donations. Regina was already my benefactor by the time I arrived, but I didn't know who she was. Anyway, I stayed, obviously, and when she told me the truth, I was grateful, because you came here so quickly after. I could watch you from a distance, and admire the person you'd become."

As she wanders back home later that day, Emma feels horribly out of sorts. She is angry, restless, and disgusted with herself, because it's her own potential that keeps sliding away. All of the work done with August, all of her work since, to find herself and to follow through on one simple task:

Compiling information on Regina Mills…

Only to bury it because her love for the woman eclipses anything else.

She is furious, not because of the things that Regina has done, but because Regina could just slip through with so much calmness, with an ability to live in the world so freely. While she, Emma, lives so uncomfortably in her skin and in her life.

All of the work she's done to accept herself, is always so fragile. And she feels like she's getting older. Older and less and less accomplished with each day.

She's in a funk. And it's all because her stupid shrink and his stupid contact at the New Empire Investigations Bureau managed to convince Emma that she was some kind of savior in the new world order. A savior, because she'd gotten closer to Regina Mills—the mastermind behind a huge anti-Empire movement. Emma had told them to find another Christ-figure, but they'd persisted, eventually using her record and her ambitions, to convince her that keeping files on Regina would someday prove fruitful.

Add to all of that Emma's need to keep Regina protected. And Ruby's intel, all of which points to a member of the Sheriff's department and which Emma had shoved into a box along with all the rest because fuck it, she doesn't have the energy to do more than keep an eye on him.

It's a clusterfuck and Emma is the only one fully in the know. She remembers studying screen writing at a class she used to take for free at UCLA. The prof hadn't realized she wasn't a student for six weeks, but then he'd pretended awhile longer even after it became obvious. The best part of the class had been about plot twists and subplots. It was like a metaphor for her life—those small stories that shadowed her days. Stories that became more momentous the more she ignored them.

Emma had always thought that it was best to keep her enemies close. Really close. As in so close that she could watch their eyes follow her, their loyalties evolve. In the case of Deputy Dell, his loyalties to the elites of the Old and New Empires never wavered. He followed Emma's little orders here or there, even played along when she wanted surveillance on Regina Mills.

Well of course he'd be into that.

And since she'd always had him watched as well, things had gone just fine. Emma was able to survey whatever he knew. She'd been in the middle of bringing him down when Regina had destroyed their roads. But it didn't matter, because her surveillance had reported an end to all of his communications with any outside of Storybrooke.

Emma had already had enough planted information circulating about Regina Mills (spottings in a dozen spots across the former country). What she hadn't counted on, was the actual defeat of the Empire elites. If Dell were going to go after Regina, it would only be as a vendetta. But if he managed to get out, and brought any of Regina's files with him, they might actually lose something.

She avoids the issue of Deputy Dell awhile longer and stops in at Archie's for a coffee. They're growing beans in incredible numbers now, and Archie shows off his new processing area in the back, between the greenhouses. Emma realizes, when she hears stuff like this, that she really likes this damned town.

Later, she stands in front of her own home and takes stock of that as well. It isn't much, but it's the only thing she's accomplished.

At the back of Emma's bedroom closet, behind boxes of extra flooring and carefully placed clutter, are the files she's kept on Regina Mills, _Mills Corp_, and Mr. Gold, for the better part of ten years. There is also cash, now fairly useless, bundled in envelopes. She'd counted once. About two million. It's good for fire starter. She decides to use it for just that.

Sure, she's played dumb a lot of the time. And the truth is that she really hadn't seen how it all fit together until fairly recently. She needed Regina to confirm the killings in the Midwest and Southwest, and the crop failures and other manufactured disasters that lined _Mills Corp _and _Gold Corp_'s accounts as people became more and more desperate for seed, for soil, and for water.

The time has passed for any arrests or reports to higher authorities. Emma's job as Sheriff is to protect Storybrooke—and that includes protecting everybody in it.

It is time to take control of her town.

_Her _town. Even though it had all been Regina's idea and most certainly Emma had been manipulated into joining the ranks of Storybrooke's citizenry, at the end of the day, Regina had made this place for her. For her, for Henry, for the rest of their family.

Emma isn't surprised when she returns to her office to find Deputy Dell absent and his badge still on his desk. He'd been following Regina for the better part of the past decade himself, according to Ruby's estimation, and as a representative of the Old and New Empire's new elites—all holed up in Las Vegas as it currently stood—he was out for Regina's blood.

She spends the better part of two hours driving slowly around the town's perimeter. Siren off. But she drives the Sheriff's car.

There is a flash of something—the whiteness of her Deputy's shirt—and she sees that he's climbing over the rubble of the south border.

The shots that are fired are first fired by him, the minute he realizes that she's standing and staring at his clumsy attempts. She returns fire in self defense.

It is strange, this killing of a person. She wishes it had gone easier. That he'd agree to life in that small jail cell. But when a bullet speeds past her left ear, she ends it.

She chooses this place because this place chose her. The guy who tried to buy her off, using her shrink's recommendation, using her own desperation, had been wrong all those years ago. She was not easily bought and she was not loyal to some imagined world of good versus evil. The lines could not so easily be drawn.

The old Empire would soon end. Both Empires. And all of their lies and trickery with them…

Deputy Dell had tried to shed his new identity, to scale the town's walls of stone and dust, and to return to a world that would soon drown in desert sand and be forgotten. Whatever his crimes, whether he was a coward or a hero, Emma owed him at least the respect of claiming his body and caring for it.

So that's how she spends the rest of her night. No one attends the funeral and she doesn't bother to alert the press. But she does bury her own gun in the grave, before taking her weary, dusty self back to her home.

It's midnight by the time she climbs into a hot bath. She floats a moment, thinks back to something her psychiatrist had said:

"_You're an agent in your own story. You sometimes forget. You already have control over the life you live." _

She hears a key in her front door. It opens and closes loudly and deliberately.

Then Regina is with her, kneeling by the tub, helping to scrub at the gun powder residue on Emma's right cheek.

They don't say much, but Emma places her palm over Regina's lower belly.

When they lie in bed, Regina tries to talk to Emma about one of the more important details in their lives currently. Months later, they'll revel at the easy way they all swept murder and mayhem under the rug. Survival mode. And a bit of shock.

Regina is talking on and on about this new kid. "…I mean, I really do consider you to be the other parent of this child already. So do you want to actually get on with it or…"

"Get on with it…you mean…" Emma's sitting up in bed, sipping a glass of water, which nearly reaches her mouth before her hand cramps around it and chugs too fast. She coughs doubled over, then wheezes, then stares at Regina with eyes so wide they look like they'll pop.

"Not exactly the happy response I'd hoped for sweetheart." Now Regina's voice is quiet and she looks hurt. Emma fights the urge to shout 'well you looked pretty freaked out yourself!' and instead clears her throat, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and gets on her knees.

"Will you marry me, Regina…_ouch_!"

Regina stares, utterly annoyed, as Emma scowls back at her. "You didn't have to propose. I simply want to know if you'll take part in all of this, not whether you've become Mr. Beaver all of a sudden."

"You could have just said no."

Regina looks sort of regretful now. She sighs. "I did say no and you didn't mean your proposal."

They glare at one another for another minute or two and then both start to giggle at the same time. But then Emma bursts into tears and cries herself to sleep at Regina's side.


	16. Chapter 16

****author's note: first of all, your encouragement through this story has been really lovely and I thank you. I had to end the first part of it. Actually, the first part of it saw Regina as a businesswoman and Emma as her errand grrl, but anyway, so this is the second part of it all technically. Now on to the third part. Which I've not yet mapped out. So this is a short chapter, meant to transition the story into another phase. And it isn't beta'ed, because my beta is very thorough and good at what she does, and I'm in between extreme work hours at the moment and just can't burden her with it all. So anyhow, thanks again for your input and I hope this short chapter is ok. **

A few glitches still come to the surface in their insular little town. Regina's pregnancy has an odd effect on the way some of the others actually see _Emma._

They are in the middle of a shared 'work' day in the old office in town hall, when Dr. Whale drops by to speak with Emma. Regina had just begun to receive staggered communications from a free confederacy of Native Nations in Nevada, about a number of new chemicals being utilized in the center of Old and New Empire city holdings. Her concern is visible and she takes a moment to realize that Emma is also upset. By the time Emma starts to swear, Regina is up and has taken off her glasses, striding quickly to the doctor.

"My you're an emotional creature these days," She attempts to joke with Emma and maintains eye contact while warning Whale, "be careful or I'll tell everyone about your faked credentials, _doctor_."

"What?" He shrugs. "I only told the father to be that…"

But Regina's glare is enough to stop that line.

"Sorry, the kid has two moms, I get it, it was just a joke…" He sighs and turns red in the face of a stare down. "Just wanted to remind the two moms to be that both parents' habits actually are known to control the health and wellbeing of the baby to be."

"So I've heard." Emma scowls, remembering how her own diet and habits had changed in the months since finding out about Regina's pregnancy.

After he leaves them with the latest in charts and dietary advice, Regina closes the door gently behind him and turns to look carefully at her partner.

"I'm not a man." Emma states. "I know who I am. I'm a woman. I get to pick and choose whatever the fuck I want from the gender trunk and fuck what anyone else says…"

"Trunk? That's an odd choice of words. I like it. Sweetheart, just to add—not to diminish your frustration—he doesn't know a thing about you. Anyway, he's not yet expendable, but I'll let you know when he is. Now, what do you mean by trunk?" Her hand moves upward, rubbing Emma's arm lightly, soothing as best she can. The idiot doctor can't be gotten rid of, not when they're all so isolated.

"Like a Tickle Trunk. You know, with costumes. We all wear costumes, in a way, I suppose. It's from a children's show they used to play in Canada. I lived there for six months once, and uhh…we'd all just eat cereal and watch Mr. Dress…nevermind." Emma just shrugs feeling sort of silly.

"You're whoever you want to be in this situation. Who do you want to be to this child? Other mother? Mother's special friend?" Regina chuckles.

"Maybe just Emma. I'll call them kid and they can call me by my first name."

"So what's the issue?"

"Honestly, it's not ever been one for you, has it?" Emma shakes her head in confusion. "I mean why? Why do you just accept me for who I say I am?"

"I love you." Regina looks clueless as she says this, totally unable to figure out what it is that Emma is so bothered by. Emma sighs.

"I had to go through a lot of therapy to get in touch with my body." She reminds her lover. "There are things you should know about that time. Or things I should just tell you. It's not enough to say 'it doesn't matter'. You know?"

"Ok." After a pause, Regina nods and winds her arms around Emma's neck.

"Well, that's it. I mean no one ever found out about me, I hid it somehow really, really well, but I also put off thinking about the implications of it all…of having…what I have…"

"What you have is what you have. You chose your nouns. Whatever words you use to describe your body, they're your words. I go with the flow and listen to your instruction. Speaking of which, I think I want you to tie me up. Pregnancy hormones are making me have the kinkiest thoughts." She says this last part so casually, walking back to her desk with only the slightest sway in her hips.

Emma can't help but laugh then. Regina is the biggest puzzle she will ever _never_ solve fully. She isn't diminishing Emma's angst, she just doesn't get the issue. It's sort of a weird time they're living in. A world in which the boundaries of the _old_ world become almost (almost) meaningless.

The remaining town members meet at Archie's that night, so Regina's plans for seduction and bondage have to wait. Ruby informs them that the Old and New Empire holdings have collapsed in all of the former Eastern states. "They only have Nevada left, but the last of their government leadership has holed up in Las Vegas. Once their water and electricity is cut off, that's the end…" she says.

Gold interrupts her, "They won't be cut off. They'll be shown mercy and allowed to live out their lives with periodic communication across outside lines."

"Mercy?" Regina says the word mockingly. Beside her, Emma squeezes her thigh.

"Let him have his stupid spotlight," Emma whispers in Regina's ear later while they enjoy their herbal tea and avoid everybody in an effort to sneak home together. Ruby nods in their direction and holds the door open so they can slip out.

Supportive friend or not, Ruby has to tease them on their way out, saying, "Mommies to be gotta get their sleep. And apparently other mommies to be gotta get their grove on. I swear, Emma, if you look at her like that in public, I can't imagine what you do to her in private."

That earns an eye roll from Emma and a smirk from Regina.

Later, when the ill-advised bondage gear sits discarded on the ground (Regina's wrists and ankles just are not in the mood) and Emma touches her lover gently between her spread legs, splayed out next to her but laying close, their eyes meet and Emma feels the final resolution of all of her mistrust and anxiety. They're in it together.

"I'm drinking the Kool-Aid." Emma mutters, licking and biting Regina's throat along her jugular.

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm not trying to kill you, just keep you on side." Regina moans and makes a mental note to wear one of her turtlenecks the next day.

"Hush. Come for me and stop arguing with me." Emma orders her firmly, then presses down as she strokes her and makes a satisfied noise when Regina arches and moans her release. "Mine, mine, mine…"

"Yours, yours, yours…" Regina says with another sigh.

They begin to receive the first correspondences from outside. They retrieve messages carried over long distances, whispered at borders, written on birch bark and floated in bottles. It's weird. But somehow, information is streaming—literally—all around the world as people update each other in massive numbers. The oceans have yet to heal themselves completely after the floods and tsunamis of recent years, and the debris from civil and imperial wars weigh heavily. So whatever information gets through is invaluable.

"Next best thing to reading the newspapers on a Sunday morning." Emma grunts, fishing the bottles out of the water while Regina basks in the sun behind her. They sit together on a blanket, drinking tea and watching the horizon beyond the debris and smashed boats. "This scenery sucks, babe." She mutters.

Regina, puts foot in Emma's lap, then draws one toe up and down the seam of her jeans. She smirks and starts to unbutton her slacks.

"I thought we were reading." Emma's voice sounds distant to her own ears. She squirms.

"Hmmm, we are." Is all Regina will say. "We're also celebrating."

"Celebrating which part?"

Now Regina slides closer and it's her fingernails that trace the thick curve she's created in the front of Emma's jeans.

"The fact that the new communities are thriving on their own. Neither I, nor Gold are needed in order to control anything anymore." She undoes Emma's zipper and straddles her, kissing her wetly while she's undressed just enough to make room for Emma between her thighs.

They're disheveled and out of breath when they finally make their way away from the beach.

"Oh shit." Emma squeaks, seeing Gold some distance away.

"Relax, I don't think he saw us." Regina mutters. Still, she's wary as they meet up with him after a few moments.

"Good morning dears." His weird, old timey terms sort of get under Emma's skin. She shrugs and takes a quick look over her shoulder.

Thankfully, their spot on the beach is well out of sight. Emma relaxes finally and smiles at the man.

"How's Henry this morning?" Regina asks.

"Fine, fine. Full of questions, of course." His eyes flit back and forth between Emma and Regina, his lips quirking up in a smile.

"Questions?" Emma has a few of her own.

"We're tricksters, Ms. Swan. Tricksters of the new and old order, Regina and I…" He coughs and leans over, pressing his chest gently before straightening up again.

"Do continue." Regina says warily. "And…"

"And…" He waves his cane with a flourish, gesturing toward the horizons. "_And _you're going to love what we come up with next."

"She is?" Regina asks.

"I am?" Emma sighs melodramatically.

But Gold just smiles like an idiot and walks away.

"Weirdo. He does that a lot." Emma shakes her head and takes her love's hand.

"Remind me to give him some Kool-Aid also." Regina shakes her head with a wry smile. "Anyway. You'll figure it out." Regina says. "You're the person who turned this all around. You saved this town. And me. And our baby. Goodness, you're quite the savior." She chuckles and swings Emma's hand like a dork.

"What? No I'm not. I'm no one's _savior_." Emma hates that shit. It's worse, more cliché, than being a martyr.

"In many ways, you are. I sought out your parents because I wanted to do something that might be good for you, but I was the one who gained friends. Real friends, for the first time in my life." Regina continues to talk. Emma squashes down impatience. The therapy thing was doing this to Regina a lot lately. Or whatever it was that she and Archie talked about on Thursday nights when Emma studiously avoided them.

She waits. Waits while Regina gives dramatic pause and teases her with threads of information.

"I left clues in your path and you've done everything possible to keep us safe." Regina turns to her, smiling, and the smile reaches her eyes.

Something throbs behind Emma's eyes. Sometimes she gets this feeling when things are good. When some great tension has been relieved.

She reaches and puts her palm on Regina's belly and dares to hope.


End file.
